Re: Electricity metering [was: Dear Cohousing Community
From: Chuck Harrison (cfharrgmail.com)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 13:29:32 -0800 (PST)
Yes


On Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 12:59 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
>
>
>
>

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.