Meter reading in mobile home park

[Sean Trily]

2 questions here:

My family owns a park which is in a pretty remote location. Because of this the city electric charges us one large bill for our meter and we are responsible for reading homeowners original meters, charging them, and getting our money back. I am looking for someway to make this less time consuming for our office. So one, does anyone have experience working with and convincing city power companies to come and read individual meters? or two, does anyone have any insight into automatic meter readers so at the very least we don't have to send someone out to check each meter manually?

Thanks

[Joseph Catalano]

I fully agree with Metron.  If you use Rent Manager you can actually bill the residents through Rent Manager, which make is much easier.  One great thing about Metron is that I believe it does a reading every 5 minutes, this help with any leak detection issues.

[Colby Wise]

Check out Metron Water meters. Many folks on BP swear by them. If you do a Google search of “Bigger Pockets Metron meters” or “Bigger Pockets water metering...” you’ll find all your answers and more

https://metronfarnier.com/

[Sean Trily]

@Colby Wise thanks!

Looks like they do not do electric though.

[Joseph Catalano]

I fully agree with Metron.  If you use Rent Manager you can actually bill the residents through Rent Manager, which make is much easier.  One great thing about Metron is that I believe it does a reading every 5 minutes, this help with any leak detection issues.

[Dustin Wiskes]

@Sean Trily I have the same setup at my park. The only way the local utility provider will take ownership of the electrical infrastructure and meter readings is if I re-wire and install new meter pedestals for each home. Estimate is around $1500 per pad, so not an easy cost to swallow, but I still plan to do the upgrade this year. I view it as a reduction in liability if something was to go wrong with the system and I get the added benefit of eliminating the meter reading situation.

In the meantime, my park manager reads the meters and I bill back residents.

Dustin

[Sean Trily]

@Dustin Wiskes thanks for the info. I would like to know more details on how the process went. So far i have had no luck talking to local gov officials. Maybe you can help me out. Did this have any effect on property taxes? Of course im in CA so it could be very different. Ill send u a dm.