Posted by MariettaMike on June 16, 2006 at 11:39:33:
Lots of stuff on this in archives.
check this link and follow ups to it.
http://www.creonline.com/mobilehomes/wwwboard4/messages/23566.html
Hope this helps
instaling water meters in park - Posted by ScottT.
Posted by ScottT. on June 15, 2006 at 22:45:30:
I own a park that does not have water meters. I would like to install water meters instead of raise the monthly rent, but the cost is very high. Does any one know if there is a cheap way to intall a system that I could install on each house that would be cheaper and eaier than doing it the old fasion way. Thanks for the help. ScottT.
Re: instaling water meters in park - Posted by Joe C. (AR)
Posted by Joe C. (AR) on June 16, 2006 at 23:42:23:
I’ve installed them in both my parks. The first park cost me about $130-$150 per lot about 6 years ago. I did the work myself. The second park I just completed in May (I haven’t owned it very long). I did this park for under $150/lot including paying a handyman $30 each to install. I found less expensive suppliers and bought in bulk. In both parks I installed meter access boxes and new shut off valves. Very easy to do and well worth the expense and time. I get a commercial rate from the utility on the master meter and add 5% to tenants rate for admin and maintenance. Still cheaper than regular residential rate for average homeowner. I read the meters myself and do the billing on an excel spreadsheet. Total time spent for both parks including reading meters and billing averages about 3 hrs. month. I also did gas meters in one of the parks and read them as well (included in the 3 hours).
I don’t know how big your park is but being reimbursed by the tenants for utilities increases your parks value by 10X the utility expense at a 10% cap rate. A $500/mo reduction in utility expenses ($6000/yr) translates into a $60K increase in value. This is a no brainer. Old park, new park makes no difference. It can be done very simply, with minimal disruption and expense.
Just my $.02
Joe C. (AR)
Re: instaling water meters in park - Posted by JP (in PC)
Posted by JP (in PC) on June 16, 2006 at 19:51:29:
Scott,
I’m sure my situation is different than yours but we are doing the same thing. Turns out our park has 30+ year old lines that need replaced so we are going to have it all done at the same time to the tune of about 200K. The upside is we’ll (hopefully) stop having water spouts in the middle of the night and our water bill won’t be $3200 a month anymore. We figure we’ll have our 200K in investment back in about 6 years. The city is providing the meters which they will then read and bill our tenants directly, we provide the meter sets.
We looked into doing RUBS but it isn’t popular in our area and we didn’t want any tenant pushback about it not being fair plus with our leaking lines it wouldn’t have been helpful anyway.
John