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As more and more buildings in the multi-family housing sector are converting to systems whereeach apartment occupant pays for water and wastewater directly instead of including thesecharges as part of the rent. The three most common ways in which this billing conversion isaccomplished are: through direct submetering of water use by means of a water meterinstalled on a single point of entry water line; through a Ratio Utility Billing System(RUBS), which bases the water bill on a ratio of floor space or occupants or number ofbedrooms, etc; or, a hybrid of the two where total domestic water use is estimated based onthe ratio of the metered hot water use of each unit to the total water use of all occupants. It isestimated that there are now as many as 2 million properties that have undergone billing systemconversions. This paper discusses theNational Submeter and Allocation Billing Program. Its goals are to determine themerits of billing conversion programs including the potential water savings, costs, benefits, andthe accompanying administrative and regulatory issues. Work on this study began in the firstquarter of 2002 with completion expected in July 2004. The study project team developed a multifaceted approach to accomplish the research objectives.Sites selected for the study had to have both a combination of qualified properties and thecooperation of the local water utility. Properties eligible for further consideration were obtainedfrom the billing records of read and bill companies and water utilities. Eligible sites weredeemed to have in-rent, sub-metering, and allocation billed properties. Following extensiveeffort in this phase of the study, 13 study sites were selected as meeting the identified criteria:Denver, Colorado; Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; Hillsborough County, Florida;Phoenix, Arizona; Tucson, Arizona; Austin, Texas, San Antonio, Texas; Portland, Oregon;Oakland, California; Irvine, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Las Vegas, Nevada.A detailed and rigorous work plan to obtain data from each study site was developed by theproject team that included surveys and historic billing records from 1999-2002, a four year study"window" to analyze changes in water use.This study assumes that the billing consumption histories provided by participating utilities andthe mail surveys are accurate. For the selected study properties, the mail surveys submitted bythe owners and managers of multi-family dwellings will be verified via site surveys. Includes 8 references, figure.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/17/2004 Number of Pages: 6File Size: 1 file , 270 KB