The HOA Board Quarterly Spring 2014 Issue #9 | Page 4

The Benefits of Water Sub-Metering
by Moquey Marquross

S

ub-Metering is the practice of installing a separate
meter for each individual residential unit, where
there is currently no separate meter. There are
several important benefits to sub-metering: it promotes
conservation; increases property values; saves money;
promotes homeowner awareness; facilitates leak
detection and as a side benefit, allows accurate tracking
of common-area water consumption.
Most new construction condos and townhomes are
built with water sub-meters in place: In the City of
San Diego, sub-metering has been mandated for all
new construction since 2010. Older associations can
also benefit from sub-metering by installing individual
meters as a retrofit project. According to multiple
studies, when an association implements sub-metering,
the reduction in water consumption is around 20-25%
or more. This is primarily due to increased awareness
and leak detection.
Homeowner accountability drives conservation:
Residents who do not pay for their individual water
usage lack accountability for their consumption and
are not fiscally aware of what those costs are; these
residents simply use more than ‘average’. In some
extreme cases, residents in HOAs have been found to
be taking advantage of ‘free water’ by running laundry
services, breweries and commercial hydroponic growing
operations! These are all true scenarios that were found
after individual water sub-meters were installed.
Associations with sub-meters show increased property
values: This is because assessments are counted as
a ‘hard cost’ in the mortgage approval process, and
utility bills are not, allowing more people to qualify for
a larger mortgage on a sub-metered home than a nonsub-metered home with higher assessments, thereby
increasing demand in sub-metered communities.
Sub-metering is equitable: We all know that on average
a single person uses much less water than a family of
four. With sub-meters, each resident pays for exactly
what they use, not an amortized amount based on what
the community as a whole uses annually. In addition,
because metering provides real and accurate feedback
to the resident, this in turn leads to wiser individual
decisions, from taking shorter showers and turning off
faucets all the way, to installing more efficient fixtures
and appliances during remodels. All of these little
choices add up to a whole lot of long-term savings. This
also eliminates conflicts between residents over water
usage, car washing, etcetera, because if ‘Jim’ wants to
use more water than his neighbor ‘Bob,’ that is OK; ‘Jim’
will just have a larger bill. Best of all, the association is
no longer directly responsible for something the Board
has no control over: a resident’s water usage and the
rates charged by the water districts.

4 | The HOA Board Quarterly | Issue #9 | Spring 2014

Sub-meters help identify and eliminate leaks: The data
provided by sub-meters helps identify, diagnose and
confirm slab, toilet or other leaks that are otherwise
unseen, often occurring for months or even years
without being corrected. These silent culprits, such as a
running toilet, can wast