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 no such thing as a free lunch.
Milton Friedman

It can be said that we don’t value what we don’t pay for. To tenants who don’t foot their units’ water bills, a running toilet may only mean a minor audible nuisance.  To a landlord or property manager, a running toilet means a higher water bill and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

There’s an excellent old article from 1997!?! on “submetering water” from the Journal of Property Management that’s surprisingly contemporary in its report, indicating how little has changed with regard to the promising yet cost-prohibitive installation of water meters per individual residential unit.
As I see it, the difficulties of water submetering in property management can be [...]

 
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 [...]

(Feb. 14, 2009, ApartmentSearch.com)
A water bill can easily drip away your hard-earned savings if you’re not paying attention. Saving on your water bill isn’t just the green living thing to do; it also saves you money. Reducing your water usage can be simple and painless.
Unlike your electric bill, gas bill or trash bill, your water [...]