Hey thank you for all your help. I have a detached garage that has an apartment in it and I’m looking to get it submetered. Most companies want more units than just a single-family residence to install a submetering and billing system.
How can I get my one single family residence with a detached garage apartment submetered? The garage already has a electric panel and a gas line and water line, but they all pull from the same address. Any help is appreciated
Real Estate Agent · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
4y
When I looked into submetering I was getting the same responses you did.
When I lived in my studio ADU and rented out the main house, we would just split the bill based on the square footage.
Now that we live in the main house, we just charge a $50/month flat water fee to the ADU tenants. Easier math going forward and I don't have to bother them every month.
Real Estate Agent · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
4y
When I looked into submetering I was getting the same responses you did.
When I lived in my studio ADU and rented out the main house, we would just split the bill based on the square footage.
Now that we live in the main house, we just charge a $50/month flat water fee to the ADU tenants. Easier math going forward and I don't have to bother them every month.
Hey thank you for all your help. I have a detached garage that has an apartment in it and I’m looking to get it submetered. Most companies want more units than just a single-family residence to install a submetering and billing system.
How can I get my one single family residence with a detached garage apartment submetered? The garage already has a electric panel and a gas line and water line, but they all pull from the same address. Any help is appreciated
If its a legal unit with its own address you can contact each utility to ask for the cost to install a separate meter but costs can range anywhere from nothing to 20k depending on what's involved so it may not be practical. Last time I did this, electric was <1k, gas was free and water was 16k for everything up to the meter but keep in mind you may have additional costs on your side on anything past the meter.
Real Estate Broker · Oklahoma City, OK · Member since 2021 · 3 posts · 1 vote
4y
We dealt with this on a property we manage and it was not as big of a headache as we anticipated. Contact the utility companies first. We were surprised at how reasonable some of them were. Water was going to be expensive to submeter but that is also (usually) the lowest cost utility so the tenants were willing to split the cost based on number of tenants. You could also build water into the rent to avoid conflict. Electric can be done a few different ways with the most economical being to install a submeter that has to be read manually (and billed manually). Going with a full electric meter registered with the utility company was going to be the most expensive but also probably the best long term solution. Gas was easy and free in our case because the lines were easily accessible and they were willing to add the meter for free. Hope that helps.