The Impacts of Submetering on Water Usageat Two Mobile Home Communities in Las Vegas, Nevada

摘要

Submetering is popular with property managers since it allows them to bill tenants for water, but does itsave enough water to justify its promotion or subsidy by the water utility? In theory submetering shouldgenerate significant water savings as water users pay for--and thus monitor--their water consumption.More data are needed, however, to quantify the precise savings available from this strategy, especially forindoor use by multi-family customers. This paper reports savings of seven and twelve percent in a pilotstudy of two mobile home communities in the service area of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. On anannual basis these represented a total savings of 4,056 kgal (12.4 acre-feet) from 388 single-familyhouseholds, or 10 kgal per household. Cost data for the installations were collected to help evaluate theprogram economics.The savings came primarily from changes in usage of the metered customers, including repairing of leaksand changes in discretionary domestic water use. Since both communities had previously participated inretrofit programs these savings are probably conservative in predicting for a larger population, which hadnot been part of a retrofit program. The experience at one of the communities (Flamingo West) indicatesthat addressing common area usage and leakage from the distribution systems may yield water savings,but the submetering program has not, to date, triggered management action at the park.