Remotely monitor water meters for leaks

[Corey G.]

Hello everyone. I've been reading on biggerpockets for a while but have rarely posted anything before. Thought I would finally ask for some advice. If you can help, I would appreciate it. 

First off, I have some multiplexes I own in different areas of the city and none of them have been metered separately for water so I pay it and just charge a little more for rent. This works well until there is a leak at the property and then I have a huge water bill. I'm trying to get my tenants to be a little more observant and have considered charging them if they don't catch leaks soon enough. The problem is the water usage is for 4 units and determining how much to charge a tenant for an overage is tricky. What if there were multiple leaks? So ideally, I would like to catch the leaks before they become a problem. It looks like there are water meters I could install after the city meter which do pulse output but I don't know how that works or if it will do remote monitoring. I'm pretty sure the city uses RF signals to read the meters. Is there a device I can buy that would read the meters once or twice a day and have that sent to me so I can monitor it. Has anyone found a good solution to remotely monitor water consumption? 

[Corey G.]

Typically the leaks have been toilets which will constantly run and use water slowly. By the time I find out about it however, it usually is a big expense for such an easy fix. I did have an underground pipe burst once, as well as a leaking shut off valve another time, but that doesn't seem to be typical. I would just like to catch the leaks early so that if my tenant fails to notify me or doesn't notice, I don't have to find out on my water bill at the end of the month. 30 days of a constantly running toilet adds up. Not knowing how much water each tenant uses leaves me with a problem of how much to charge the tenant for the leak as well. Now once the leak is fixed, I would like to monitor for a few days to ensure the problem has been resolved and not have to find out on my next water bill 30 days later that the leak is ongoing. I figure a one time expense to prevent major water bills in the future might be in my best interest as long as it doesn't cost too much.