Conserving Water in your Single Metered Apartment Building

If you own an apartment building with a single water meter you are either including water in the rent or using a Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) based on some ratio, such as number of tenants and/or square footage. This means tenants do not necessarily have an incentive to save water since they're not paying for it directly.

Sub-metering:

According to the Alliance for Water Efficiency, installing water meters or sub-meters, and billing according to water usage, is the single most effective water conservation measure one can take. However, this can be a very expensive undertaking and depending on how the plumbing of your building was designed, may be impractical.

Toilets:

Studies have found that toilets are by far the main source of water use in the home, accounting for over 30 percent of residential indoor water consumption in homes with older toilets. Toilets, manufactured before 1992 use up to 3.5 gallons per flush.

Recent advancements have allowed toilets to use 1.28 gallons per flush or less while still providing equal or superior performance. This is 20 percent less water than the current federal standard of 1.6 gallons per flush.

Replacing older toilets with High Efficiency Toilets (HET) is simpler and less costly than sub-metering and requires no behavioral changes on the part of your tenants. Furthermore there are a number of rebate programs you may qualify for:

• The Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) will rebate up to $125 to eligible Santa Clara County customers for upgrading to a qualifying model High Efficiency Toilet. 
• SCVWD Toilet Rebate Program

• The Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency (BAWSCA) will rebate up to $100 to participating water district customers for upgrading to a qualifying model High Efficiency Toilet. 
• BAWSCA Toilet Rebate Program

Leaks:

The California Department of Water Resources states that water leaks account for 30% of the average household water usage. This is an easy source to go after. Bring in a real estate property inspector to find any leaks and then send the list to your favorite plumber. Besides wasting water, undetected leaks are a great way to attract subterranean termites and to rot out the subfloors in your bathrooms and kitchens.

Posters:

Another inexpensive, yet effective solution is to put up a poster in your apartment building with suggestions on how tenants can conserve water, doing their part to help during the drought. Here is a link to a poster I found on-line. Print it, laminate it and hang it up.

Water Conservation Poster for Apartment Buildings

Is Your Apartment Building a SOFT-STORY Building?

Soft-story buildings have structurally weak ground floors, normally wood-frame construction with a large open area often used for parking. Older buildings of this style, that have not been retrofitted, could collapse in a major earthquake, destroying the properties and risking the lives of those who reside in them.

After the Loma Prieta earthquake, as well as the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, many soft-story buildings were severely damaged, which prompted changes in building codes. The 6.0 magnitude Napa earthquake in August 2014, the largest in California in 20 years, has again drawn attention to the dangers of older buildings that don't meet current seismic standards.

The city of Mountain View is set to follow the example of San Francisco and Berkeley by encouraging, or perhaps forcing, property owners to retrofit buildings in the city that are more likely to collapse.

There is an estimated 100 to 125 buildings in Mountain View that have a soft-story design that may need retrofitting. Landlords in Berkeley have been paying anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per unit for the seismic retrofit work, averaging about $3,280 per unit, according to Berkeley’s Planning and Development department.

If you have this style of a building, protect your investment. Hire a structural engineer to inspect your building and determine if seismic retrofitting is needed.

Mountain View Voice - related article

San Jose Mercury News - related article

Soaring Bay Area Rents. What are the Going Rates?

You’ve seen the articles – “Soaring Bay Area Rents”, but what are the rents? How much are other’s charging?

San Francisco Business Times in January 2015 published a list of the highest rents in the country, which included a number of Bay Area cities. They showed the median rent for a typical 1-bedroom apartment.  The median means the middle, in other words, half the rents for a 1-bedroom apartment are less then this number and half are higher.

Palo Alto - $3,645	San Mateo - $2,728	Sunnyvale - $2,616
San Francisco - $3,488	Redwood City - $2,700	Santa Clara - $2,446
Cupertino - $3,136	Mountain View - $2,700	San Jose - $2,400

* Source – San Francisco Business Times - LiveLovely.com

The best way to find out how much your property might rent for is to look at ads to see how much rent other owners and property managers are asking for on similar size units in your area. Rather than spend hours combing through Craigslist and other rental web sites I have found several good web sites that make it easy for you to look at a map and see the rental ads from Craigslsit and other rental sites.

Look up rents at: www.TomMartinsWebsite.com/rentalrates.

Multi-Family Building Energy Upgrades and Low Cost Financing

The Bay Area Multi-family Building Program offers cash rebates and free energy consulting for multifamily properties that undertake energy upgrades. The program is open to multi-family buildings with five or more attached dwelling units in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. (Fourplexes and smaller properties typically qualify for the single-family energy rebate offers. Check www.EnergyUpgradeCA.org for available programs)

Improve your property value by updating to modern energy systems, lowering utility bills and reducing operating costs. An energy consultant will work with you to customize a package of improvements that matches your property’s needs and meets a minimum of 10% whole building energy savings. Select your own licensed contractors and manage your installation.

The program provides $750 per unit in rebates to help pay for qualifying upgrades. In unit, whole building, and common area improvements are eligible.

Get started today by enrolling online at: Multifamily.EnergyUpgradeca.org/#bayarea

Looking for low cost financing? When you replace your heating or air conditioning system, windows, or upgrade your insulation, CaliforniaFIRST offers affordable, long-term financing that you can repay easily on your property taxes. And, there's an added bonus: just as with your mortgage, the interest portion of your CaliforniaFIRST tax assessment may be tax deductible. No banks. No money down. Not based on personal credit rating. Check it out at CaliforniaFirst.org.