Hi, I have 4 doors on a piece of property in Auburn, California and currently I am paying for the water. I was curious if there are people out there charging their tenants for well water, and if so, how are you regulating it. All 4 doors are on the same line. 

Should I figure out how much is reasonable in my area to charge and add it to the rent?

I was hoping to charge for how much they use to create an incentive on saving water also prolonging the life of my pump.

Any information would be great.

Thank you,

Dustin  

You can hook a meter up to each water heater to get a good idea of how much each tenant uses. It's not perfect, but it's inexpensive and might be good enough.

I'd look at your local laws as well, since the water is actually free from a well - it's just the upkeep that you have to pay for, so of course you want to incentivize being nice to it if possible. But it's not just passing utility costs on to the tenant like it would be with electricity.

I'm not trying to be a terrible land lord, but the pump to my well has already gone out twice. I need to either dig another one or continue replacing this one. Just trying to offset these expenses. Thank you for your response Clark! 

Pump has gone out twice? Why? Our well pump has been operating for 19 years and has never had an issue. What type of well do you have?

I would guess its not worth the effort of metering them and billing them individually unless one of them is a big water hog. Water pump should last at least 15 years. You might want to make sure your pressure switch is setup correctly, that you have a large enough tank capacity and that your tank is not defective as any of these could cause your pump to short cycle and not last. Also the intake or the pump could be too low and sucking in debris from the bottom or the well might not be capable of enough flow and is running the pump dry.