Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Electricity metering [was: Dear Cohousing Community

[Bryan Bowen (bryan]

Ken, I think a write up like that would be very useful. It's become common
in affordable housing projects to install sub meters as well, and while
billing is part of the story it's also wise from a building maintenance
perspective and wco perspective as well. It helps their facilities staff
determine where leaks are very early on, and they save tons of money in
maintenance hours and water bills.

-b

*Check out: Caddis Community Partners! <http://caddiscommunitypartners.com>*

BRYAN BOWEN    |    PRINCIPAL   |    AIA   |    LEED AP

*caddis collaborative*
1510 Zamia Ave #103
Boulder, CO 80304
303 443 3629
caddispc.com

*NOTE: **Our **physical **offices are closed due to the pandemic. We are
happy to meet with you via video conference. We are still conducting
construction site visits. Thanks for your patience and understanding.*


On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 1:58 PM Ken Winter <ken [at] sunward.org> wrote:

> A couple years ago, Sunward Cohousing installed a submetering system for
> our *water* bills.  We're very happy with it:  It has solved equity
> problems (our households, no matter how big or thirsty, *used *to pay
> equally for the collective water usage), our consumption is down by
> ~20%, and the web-based meter system issues automatic alerts of potential
> leaks and higher-than-expected consumption.
>
> I've been meaning to write an article on this for cohousing.org or some
> such medium, but I don't know how much interest there is from other coho
> communities.  Maybe I'll use this occasion to test the waters.  Is anybody
> reading this interested in knowing more about the whys, whats, and hows of
> submetering?
>
> ~ Ken Winter
> ~ Sunward Cohousing
>
> On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 3:03 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>
> > > Chris Roth - Communities Editor <editor [at] gen-us.net>
> >
> > > At Lost Valley, each individual electric meter has … a
> > > monthly charge (at least $10 apiece monthly, charged for each of the
> > > less-than-five-minute visits/readings by the power company person) has
> > > at times exceeded the actual additional electricity charge on some of
> > > those meters.— And even though we've talked
> > > about the desirability of reducing the number of meters to save costs,
> > > we've also talked about increasing it, as some people likely consume
> > > five or ten times as much electricity in their individual units (by
> > > keeping the heat cranked up, etc.) as others do
> >
> > This is called sub-metering and is possible. I don’t know the costs but
> > with a $10 charge for even reading meters, it sounds like it might be
> worth
> > it. The complex then has one meter and there are sub-meters inside each
> > unit (or some other convenient spot). The meters can be read from outside
> > the unit using wifi or bluetooth or something.
> >
> > If the minimum account charge is $30-40, many people will just be paying
> > for having an account, not for each kwh unless they go over the minimum.
> > And they may  not.
> >
> > One intentional community (don’t remember which) put individual readers
> in
> > the front hall of units where residents could see them. They had large
> > faces like clocks and that dramatically reduced usage.
> >
> > People worry about one or more households being wasteful users or
> > whatever, but when I think about each of our households, I don’t think
> any
> > of them would be wasteful. Some have more people or are larger or are
> home
> > more, so there would be a variation but you could charge per adult
> (regular
> > residents, not occasional guests).
> >
> > One of our residents had an electric bill of $8 a month when others were
> > $80 a month. She worked long hours away from home, had a 615 SF south
> > facing unit, didn’t use her dishwasher or her dryer, and controlled her
> > thermostat.
> >
> > (Our single meter water bill has greatly increased with all the people
> > working from home. The treasurer was asking about a leak somewhere until
> we
> > realized what caused it.)
> >
> > Sharon
> > ----
> > Sharon Villines
> > Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> > http://www.takomavillage.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> > http://L.cohousing.org/info
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>
>