Water Bills Growing as Co-op / Condo Budget-Breaker. Here's What to Do.

Accountant Jay M. Menachem has seen some buildings' water bills rise to about 10 percent of the operating budget. In one eight-unit Manhattan co-op, the amount earmarked for water and sewer leaped from 5.3 percent to 10 percent of the budget in the past five years. At a 196-unit co-op in Queens, the water bill has nearly doubled in the past decade – rising from $39,145 to $65,615 per year – yet its percentage of the budget rose only from 4.3 percent to 4.5 percent because real estate taxes and fuel costs have also gone up significantly.

In announcing the latest rate hikes, Alan Moss, chairman of the New York City Water Board, noted that the city's water system has been "neglected" for many years. Cas Holloway, commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which manages the city's billion-gallon-a-day water supply, blamed "unfunded federal mandates." Holloway singled out the $1.4 billion Catskill and Delaware Ultraviolet Light Disinfection Facility, which, he says, was forced on the city with little regard to "whether the investment is needed right now."

Other costly projects include the $2.8 billion Croton Water Filtration Plant Project; the $330 million that's being spent on storm sewers and water mains; and the ongoing construction of the $6 billion Tunnel No. 3, which will supplement the city's two water tunnels, which were completed in 1917 and 1936 and are showing their age.

Those mandates, says Holloway, have "substantially, and unnecessarily, increased the financial burden of the water system on New Yorkers, many of whom are struggling in these difficult economic times." Holloway notes that DEP has already enacted an eight percent budget cut and is going through its capital program line by line to find additional ways to trim costs.

Substituting Submeters

Today, most residential buildings each have a single water meter, and bills are divided without regard for each apartment's actual water usage. The guy overwatering his garden isn't penalized for waste, and the water miser isn't rewarded for saving. A small percentage of buildings still even receive flat-rate "frontage" water bills, based on the building's street frontage and the number of stories, apartments, and water-using fixtures. This system is scheduled to be phased out by July 2012.

"There might be a time when residential buildings start submetering for water like many are doing now for electricity," says Weber, the property manager. Many co-op / condo supers "are saying that [submetering] is where the city will be going in a couple of years," notes Michael Williams, who owns Brooklyn-based Meter Reading Services. Williams services five residential buildings in Brooklyn and Queens that already have water submeters.

"Using water has become more expensive, but wasting it is a killer," adds Alan Rothschild, president of Vantage Group of Monroe Township, N.J. "We try to help buildings figure out their most efficient level of water use, then get there and stay there."
The process begins with a water cost analysis, which takes a couple of weeks and usually costs between $1,000 and $3,000. An automatic meter reader (AMR) reads the water meter every hour and transmits the information to a central computer. Rothschild says an AMR quickly notices upticks in water usage from "insidious and sneaky" things like "invisible" leaks.

AKAM Associates hired Vantage to address high water bills at eight properties it manages. "[T]he bills were accurate [but] there was gross over-usage of water owing to antiquated toilets, showerheads, and sink and faucet fixtures," says AKAM president Michael Berenson. The properties underwent a "tune-up" that attacked the sources of waste. "Ultimately," Berenson adds, "aerators, seals, flushometers and other elements were replaced, resulting in reductions in water consumption of as much as 30 percent."

High-tech systems like AMR are no substitute for diligent preventive maintenance of your water system, argues Philip Kraus, president of Fred Smith Plumbing & Heating Company, which has been in business since 1914.

"We find that in most buildings, if everything seems to be working, people aren't inclined to look into it," Kraus says. "That's not the way to go. Every six months you should check your water-heating system for [both] domestic use and heat. Make sure [the meters are] calibrated correctly," Kraus advises. "Then start asking questions. Is the tenant with the rooftop garden using more water? Is there a hot spot on the basement floor? If so, untold gallons of hot water returning from radiators might be leaking beneath the basement floor."

Adapted from Habitat July/August 2010. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>