LeakBird

(May 16, 2009, The Chicago Daily Herald)

Q. I have been renting a duplex unit for more than three years. A week ago, my landlord told me the water bills have been getting very high and that she was thinking about charging me for water. My lease states that I am not responsible for water unless [...]

There’s a fantastic article called 15 Easy Toilet Tune Ups that runs through a few of the sounds your toilet makes when it’s on the fritz, that is, running or leaking or in need of repair.
Basically, even though I know there are more sounds a toilet can make, I’ve put together a list of seven:

The [...]

The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people.
Unknown
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Murphy’s Law

When it comes to running toilets, you can’t rely on your tenants to report them, unless you have a system in place. In other words, people depend on systems. Chapters 5 and 6 will explore systems in further [...]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
George Berkeley
Before we move on, let’s rephrase Berkeley’s famous question:
If a toilet runs in the bathroom and no is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
The latter part of this chapter will address [...]

Perhaps you’re new to the field of
property management or landlording, or
weathered by years of experience. Two
things, however, you hold dear no
matter what level you operate from.
Your two most precious resources
are MONEY & WATER.
If you have cash flows that are secure,
you don’t have to evict your tenant
due to foreclosure.  If you have a
secure water supply, you [...]

Property managers, landlords and water companies or utilities consider two resources their most precious:

Money
Water

Without secure cash flows and water supplies, their businesses will be under water almost instantaneously.
Because 95% of landlords and property managers pay their tenants’ water bills, it’s natural that they’re interested in where they can most effectively manage and secure the [...]

The Boston Globe recently ran an op-ed about water conservation in rental properties entitled, “Do Environmentalists Rent Property?“, which also has some fantastic comments from landlords and tenants in the greater Boston area.  The author wonders if she’s the only one who is a good tenant when it comes to not using more water than [...]

(March 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
ID asks:
One of the structural issues I see with regard to pricing water is metering.

I’m sure the technology exists or could easily exit to monitor my water usage tied to a dollar amount.
I would like an easy to read display: Gallons used, unit cost, total cost. Generally metering is on [...]

(March 16, 2009, The Water Blog, Portland Water Bureau)

March 16-20th is the EPA’s first, annual Fix A Leak Week.  Fix A Leak Week is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense program, which seeks to protect the nation’s water supply by promoting efficient products and services and educating the public about water conservation.
According to WaterSense:

11,000 [...]

(March 10, 2009, The Orange County Register)
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Californians to reduce water use in the face of severe drought conditions, 78 households in The Reserve neighborhood of San Clemente were resting easy.
Those residents had signed on to participate in The Reserve Outdoor Sustainability Project, a study measuring the effects of efficient [...]

Many landlords and property managers, such as Jeff Porter at USA Landlord, establish excellent “water conservation programs” for their tenants, involving a number of elements:

Tenant Education
Tenant Motivation
Installation of Water Conservation Devices

While it’s essential to have a conservation program for your buildings, being proactive with tenants who don’t foot their own water bills can take a [...]

Acoustic water leak detection has been around a long time. It predominates in the water industry when it comes to listening for leaks in underground pipes, in order to protect and secure municipal water supplies from catastrophic underground leaks.  A couple of companies that come to mind are SubSurface Leak Detection, Inc, Davis-Inotek Instruments and [...]

I’ve written about how to calculate your San Francisco water bill, but I thought it might be useful to know how the SFPUC functions and just how many landlords and property managers are getting excessively high water bills due to the likes of tenants’ running toilet conditions everyday.
Back in June of 2008, I spoke with [...]

 
I recently came across an insightful 2006 document (pdf) from New York’s Department of the Environment on water/ sewer billing, water metering and water efficiency, put together for New York landlords and property managers.
I know that it’s now three years old, so some of the information is perhaps dated, though in essence I would hazard [...]

 
I came across a fascinating and informative document on a recent meeting between some associates from the University of Washington and the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) regarding water rates and billing in Seattle.
The document’s notes cover a wide gamut, but basically I learned seven things that I think any landlord or property manager in Seattle [...]

 
One only need flip open their local weekly to come across countless, sometimes useful ways and means to save water, go green, reduce energy — let’s admit, thou shalt conserve is the eleventh commandment.
Often times, the toilet is mentioned once or twice, but usually in passing.  Hence, I thought it might be useful to create [...]

(Feb. 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
CL sent in this:
I recently got a letter from my apartment complex telling me they are switching from hot water sub-metering to a ratio-utility billing system [RUBS], and they will bill based on square footage of the apartment. From what I can tell, sub metering is superior because it gives people a [...]

In my four years as a property manager, responsible for several buildings in San Francisco, one question that has come to mind time and time again concerns tenant proactivity with regard to reporting problems with respective units.  It seems that there are three main factors that push tenants to report problems:

The problem will directly effect [...]

Do your tenants’ toilets keep constantly running? Do you receive high water bills maybe once or twice a year? What approaches do you take to combat this problem? What is your system for dealing with it, as a landlord or property manager?
We randomly called 10 property managers in San Francisco to enquire into this issue. [...]

(Jan. 29, 2009, The Press Democrat)

The Sonoma County Water Agency expects to impose mandatory water restrictions in four to six weeks, the earliest and most aggressive step the agency has ever taken to combat what is shaping up to be a potentially devastating drought.
The agency will declare this a dry water year on Sunday and [...]

(Jan. 27, 2009, MSNBC)
The warnings have been coming in dribs and drabs. Now they’re like a torrent — both locally and statewide.
Water is not to be wasted.
Save it.
Period.
Our water wizards say this three-year drought cycle we’re in has left California as parched as it was back in the mid- ’70s — when odd-even rationing and [...]

(Jan. 19, 2009, Atlanta Water Shortage)
Saw an interetsing article in the AJC, from over a week ago: It Takes More Than This To Break The Drought
The weather has gone cold and dry and looks to be that way for the next 5-6 days, but long terms it’s anyone’s guess if the more normal winter weather [...]

(Jan. 24, 2009, The Portland Water Bureau)
NSF International announced updated standards regulating lead content in plumbing components. The new standards will limit lead content to 0.25% by weight. The current EPA regulations minimize lead content to 8.0%. The revised standards are in response to new strict standards recently enacted in California. These revised standards will [...]

(Jan. 23, 2009, The Kitsap Sun)
It’s a fact that Bainbridge Island has a limited water supply — limited ultimately by the amount of rain that falls and by how much of this rainfall drains into the ground.
Reporter Tristan Baurick wrote an interesting story for today’s Kitsap Sun about a decline in water levels in some [...]

(Jan. 13, 2009, Pacific Institute)
Are we running out of water?
“Is there such a thing as ‘peak water’? There is a vast amount of water on the planet—but we are facing a crisis of running out of sustainably managed water,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. “Humans already appropriate over 50% of [...]

(Jan. 22, 2009, The Patriot Ledger)

With nearly a third of Randolph’s water and sewer customers behind on their payments, the public works board may need to increase rates to cover the shortfall.
“We understand as much as anyone how tough people have it. Unfortunately, people are up against it,” Public Works Superintendent David Zecchini said. [...]

(Jan. 22, 2009, Visalia Times-Delta)
Don’t be fooled: The latest rain offers no real relief from dry conditions that could cost Central Valley agriculture more than 40,000 jobs.
That was the message delivered Wednesday to the State Board of Food and Agriculture in a session on water conditions that increasingly are putting a squeeze on agricultural operations.
“The [...]

(Jan. 21, 2009, The Milpitas Post Online)

BASKING in the 70-degree sunshine, especially when envisioning the rest of the country’s teeth-chattering, it’s understandable that a drought scenario doesn’t come readily to mind. Many of us have put away the hoses and assume that our landscaping and lawns will do just fine through the winter. There was [...]

(Jan. 21, 2009, Frank R. Rijsberman, AlterNet)

So, is the planet drying up? Not exactly, but a growing number of people are sharing a fixed amount of water that is badly managed and polluted.
Sri Lanka’s celebrated twelfth-century king Parakramabahu reportedly said, “not a single drop of water received from rain should be allowed to [...]

(Jan. 15, 2009, Stan Cox, AlterNet)

A thousand people a day move to Florida, but with development gone wild, the state’s natural systems have passed the brink of sustainability.

The monumental stone signs and freshly paved entry road appear to lead to nothing but wide-open, semitropical countryside. But a second look reveals a skyline of sorts [...]

(Jan. 20, 2009, CleanTech)
Researchers at Frost & Sullivan say the water treatment industry is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of China’s plan for RMB 4 trillion in government spending in 2009 to stimulate the economy.
The government already spent RMB 120 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, with about 10 percent of [...]

(Jan. 19, 2009, The Mercury News)
A Napa County town is imposing strict water-use limits on its residents as the region confronts sparse rainfall and forecasts promising little relief. The St. Helena City Council voted last week to implement emergency restrictions that allow residents to water their lawns, gardens and vineyards only on specific days.
The rules [...]

(Photo Courtesy of Collectors-Badges.com)
Aguanomics water virtuoso David Zetland recently did a 26-minute interview with Bloomberg Radio that’s well worth listening to. Among a myriad of thoughtful points, one caught my attention in particular: The costliness of water rationing.
Zetland was referring to a tack Santa Barbara took in the 80’s during another big California drought, whereby [...]

(Jan. 18, 2009, The Plain Dealer)
If you live in a suburb and can’t get answers about your sky-high Cleveland water bill, you might want to look to your local city hall for help.
That’s what Solon and Twinsburg residents did with unresolved complaints they made to the Cleveland Division of Water, which supplies water to [...]

(Jan. 17, 2009, AccessNorthGA)
The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners is implementing increased water and sewer rates to help offset projected revenue shortfalls.
The residential water base rate will change from $12 for the first 3,000 gallons to $12 for the first 1,000 gallons. The senior citizen account water base rate will change from $9 for [...]

(Jan. 17, 2009, GreenThing)

With only one toilet and one tap, it seemed crazy to be handing money over when there’s plenty of rain water falling for free!
Using the parts for a water butt diverter, I just connected up to a drain pipe outside the shop and diverted rain water into a large tank [...]

(Jan. 16, 2009, Aguanomics)
David Zetland, an agricultural and resource economist at the University of California, Berkeley, talks with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene about the economics of bottled and tap water, conservation, and global water supply and management.
The 26 minute interview [.mp3] is — in my not-humble opinion — pretty damn good.
In it, Keene and I [...]

(Jan. 16, 2009, Cyber-Rain)
Since the beginning of Cyber-Rain, we have encouraged consumers to save water in every way possible. The Cyber-Rain “smart” sprinkler controller is designed to help save water, prevent waste and save money on the water bills. According to new reports, water conservation in California may soon become less of a hobby, and [...]

(Jan. 16, 2009, Crescenta Valley Sun)
New water conservation ordinances passed this week by the Crescenta Valley Water Board will go into effect in May for water district customers, according to Christy Scott, program specialist for Crescenta Valley Water District.
The new regulations come on the heels of the district’s vote last month to once again increase [...]

(Jan. 14, 2009, Treehugger)
We don’t normally think of malls as having a whole lot of landscape to water, and yet even their relatively tiny strips of grass and shrub beds are potential sources of water savings. WeatherTRAK, the smart water system developed by HydroPoint Data Systems, is helping malls in the Western US implement water [...]

(Jan. 13, 2009, New Mexico Business Journal)

Albuquerque residents are conserving water even more than ever it seems.
Customers of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Authority used six gallons fewer per person per day in 2008 than in 2007. That brings the metropolitan area’s water usage per person down to 161 gallons, which is the lowest on [...]

(Jan. 12, 2009, China National News)
China must overhaul its water management systems to provide better legal protection and more open competition for the increasingly scare resource, the World Bank said Monday.
‘For years, water shortages, pollution, and flooding have constrained growth and affected public health and welfare in many parts of China,’ the bank said in [...]

(Jan. 11, 2009, The Hickory Record)
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows a small area in the upper basin in abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions.
The long-term trends for groundwater levels continue to show gradual improvement, even though they remain below normal for this time of year.
The six-month average of area stream flows improves to slightly [...]

(Jan. 11, 2009, The Tuscon Citizen)
A precious natural resource many Tucsonans let trickle away could mean big savings.
Harvested rainwater could be used to offset drinkable water now pumped, treated, delivered and used outdoors, said James J. Riley, associate professor of soil, water and environmental science at the University of Arizona.
An increase in rainwater harvesting could [...]

(Jan. 12, 2009, The Modesto Bee)
From his desk in City Hall, Michael Cooke can tell if your toilet is running or if your automatic sprinklers have gone haywire.
Cooke is testing new software designed to track the water use of 17,000 Turlockers, then alert the biggest water hogs what they’ll pay once the city starts billing [...]

(Jan. 12, 2009, The Dallas Morning News)
State-mandated regulations on sprinklers aim to conserve water but also could lead to a dramatic spike in the cost of new systems.
Some in the industry say that, long-term, the new regulations should benefit irrigation installers and property owners. But the higher costs and slower turnaround time could hurt them, [...]

(Jan. 10, 2009, Star-Telegram)
As North Texas continues to grow and develop, water conservation becomes a crucial issue. In businesses, water conservation practices include low-flush toilets and automatic faucets. In homes, there are low-flush toilets and water-efficient dish and clothes washers and shower heads. Landscapes are the other big water user. A landscape can use 35 [...]

(Jan. 8, 2009, Planet Green)
As unappetizing as it may sound, grey water is useful stuff. OasisDesign.net defines it as such: “Any water that has been used in the home, except water from toilets, is called grey water. Dish, shower, sink, and laundry water comprise 50-80% of residential ‘waste’ water. This may be reused for other [...]

(Nov. 19, 2008, Todd Kuhns)
I’ve been hearing some concern over one of the water ordinances that we passed on Monday. I’ve heard that a number of landlords were upset about it and I couldn’t understand why until I finally read the story in the paper and (worse) the story on KTVO’s website.
Folks, both of these [...]

(Dec. 31, 2008, The Glendale News Press)
Water rates jump 12.4% today for most homeowners and commercial customers in the city — the second in a series of three controversial annual rate increases narrowly approved by the City Council in 2007.