Multi-Family Housing
Multi-family communities such as high-rise apartments, garden-style complexes, and even military housing developments face unique challenges managing water efficiently to maintain property values while also keeping costs predictable for residents. Let Metron’s water experts design a solution that will optimize water management through timely alerts and actionable insights.
Leak Detection and Risk Mitigation
Leaks are a daily risk in multi-family housing complexes, and with multiple buildings and many units, it can be really hard to identify where a leak is happening. By adding Metron submeters to each building, it becomes easy and quick to narrow down where the leaks are, making it much easier to find and fix them quickly. A serious leak in a building can cause substantial damage, so it’s vital to address it as fast as possible. In some cases, insurance providers may reduce their premiums for properties that deploy submeters. Our meters can be configured to send alerts as soon as a leak condition is identified.
For properties that can be submetered per unit, leak detection becomes even more targeted.
Zone Submetering and Monitoring
Fully understanding how much water is going into a specific building, or even an individual unit within a building, is crucial to both reducing costs and accelerated billing. By placing meters all along the water supply, Metron’s water customizable dashboard software, WaterScope®, can quickly identify how your facility’s water is being used. From something as large as a broken irrigation line to as small as a stuck toilet flapper in an individual unit, your team will be notified with role-based alerts in minutes! And by metering individual units in your complex, you now can now bill tenants for exactly what they are using which leads to faster billing, happier tenants, and streamlined dispute resolution.
Reduced Maintenance Costs
With over 30 years of experience in the water industry, the Metron team has engineered the most reliable and durable meters available. This means fewer repairs, replacements, and maintenance needs, leading to more consistent meter readings and lower long-term costs for your community. Couple this with Metron’s best-in-class customer support, and you can enjoy peace of mind that your metering solution will work reliably.
Automate ESG Reporting
As water sustainability becomes increasingly important, ESG teams are ratcheting up their water conservation goals. With WaterScope, gathering the necessary data for sustainability reports is simple, allowing you to track your conservation efforts across your portfolio of properties.
Streamlined Billing
For apartment complexes that are amenable to submetering, Metron’s cellular technology puts water usage data at your fingertips instantly, and our powerful data integration tools feed that usage data directly into your billing system, so you can rest assured that water billing will be painless every month.
By the Numbers
Try out our online savings calculator – see how much you could save by deploying submeters and monitors on your apartments property.
Ask us how Metron’s intelligent tools can improve your business.
Knowing exactly where the leaks are happening has been a game-changer for us. Before, we’d have had to send work crews door-to-door to try to find leaks—but now, we can make targeted repairs that quickly reduce total water use without driving up our maintenance costs.
Travis Pascoe, Polaris Real Estate Partners
We see this as part of our commitment to social equity – we know utility costs can be a burden for our residents, and we’re doing everything we can to help them. Metron’s smart sensors are giving us the data we need to bring down costs across the board while bringing garden-style properties’ water infrastructure into the 21st century.
Travis Pascoe, Polaris Real Estate Partners
Frequently Asked Questions
What is water submetering?
Water submetering is when water meters – called “submeters” – are placed after the primary utility-owned water meter. The utility doesn’t see the data from the submeters; instead, the owners and/or managers of the multifamily housing community can see the water consumption data of the submeters.
Where would submeters be placed in a multifamily property?
It depends largely on when the property was constructed. Before the early 1990s, apartment buildings were not built with submetering in mind, so it is often difficult or impossible to install a water meter for every apartment. In this case, submeters are best placed on a per-building basis. Apartment buildings constructed after the early 1990s often already have per-apartment submeters installed. In either case, there is also value in submetering other water-consuming features such as irrigation, swimming pools or clubhouses.
Why is submetering useful for a multifamily property?
For properties where every apartment is submetered for water, it becomes easy to bill tenants for the exact amount of water they use each month, instead of relying on RUBS (Ratio Utility Billing System) or absorbing utility fees into the rent. For properties where per-apartment submetering isn’t possible, placing water meters at each building on the campus allows rapid detection of leaks, with a much better chance of finding and repairing them than if there’s no submetering. Finally, if the city’s master water meter can be monitored, it’s possible to compare incoming water with submetered water, which can identify leaks in the distribution system on the property.
Do I need to connect power or network to the submeters?
No. Metron’s submeters are self-contained devices with long-lasting internal batteries. They transmit data directly to the local cellular network (Verizon or AT&T), with no physical connections needed. Once the meters are installed, data will show up in WaterScope on the next day.
Is submetering required by law for multifamily properties?
It depends on your location, especially as laws vary by state. Talk to your lawyer to find out the regulations in your locality.
Does Metron offer meters for submetering?
Yes. Metron’s residential meters, whether single-jet or ultrasonic, are great solutions for metering individual apartments. Metron also offers larger meters which are ideally suited to metering on a per-building basis. Metron typically leases meters and provides subscriptions to WaterScope, which allows property owners, managers and even tenants to see their water consumption data.
How do property managers and owners get to see their water data?
Metron’s WaterScope online software platform provides everything you need to understand how water is managed in a property – or even in a complete portfolio of properties. Subscriptions to WaterScope accounts are included in the meter lease agreement with Metron.
How does WaterScope generate monthly bills?
WaterScope doesn’t generate bills as such; instead it’s easy to use WaterScope’s integrations with platforms such as ManageAmerica and RentManager to transfer water usage data into your preferred billing platform.
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