Hi:
I own a 173 unit mobile home park. The original water lines were installed by the previous owner in the early 1970’s. About a year ago, I updated the sub - metering to metron remote water meters. The difference between the tenants sub meters and pawc is about 180,000 gallons a month. The last few months, we have been chasing leaks around the park and loosing about 300,000 gallons of water per month. I wasting a considerable amount of money on water, sewer, materials, and repairs and I’m not getting anywhere. I’m considering replacing the 6’’ main water line and services to each mobile home. I have about 8,100LF of main water lines. 6’’ ductile is about $35LF. I got a labor quote at about $60LF. There are other costs such as curb valves, isolation valves, stone, etc… I’m going to get additional labor proposals. What should I expect to pay for labor? Are there other more affordable options. Am I looking at a 1m expense to replace the water lines ?
Check out your drinking water state revolving fund for possible low interest loans or maybe grants. A park I bought 2 years ago had a system installed at $100/ft so your numbers seem decent to me.
Did they receive a grant?
Yes do you know anyone who received a grant? Which state?
I’ve seen numerous parks get them in the past. Some are true loans (typically below market rates), some have a forgiveness portion of the loan, others can be straight grants. We operate in NH and VT. Each state is different. NH funding is almost exclusively going to co-ops whereas VT is available for all.
Isolating common area leaks.
From your post, you have identified common area leaks are the culprit, however before re-piping the whole MHC, make sure you have gone over the basics:
- Request the raw sub-meter data, confirm all of your existing meters are working correctly.
- Obviously, check the readings at the master meter(s), are they correct, also in the middle of night, pull up a lounge chair (or have an assistant), stair at the meter’s leak detector it should stop spinning at some point.
- Also, on larger MHPs, zoning the MHP with additional sub-meters to tract water consumption is always a good idea.
- If you are experiencing pin hole leaks in copper plumbing, investigate a chemical drip system to mitigate corrosive water conditions.
FYI, Typical expected usage is @2,000 gallons per occupant per month so 173 homes say 2 occupants per home = expected usage of @ 690,000 gallons of water per month.
“We’re here to answer your sub-metering questions.”
To qualify for Pa State Revolving Fund, you have to be your own water supplier such as owning your own water wells.
I own my own water lines/sub-meters and invoice my tenants for their own water use. I purchase the water from PAWC. Because I purchase water from PAWC, I don’t qualify.
A 6" min water supply line? Are you sure? Does it supply fire hydrants? If you have leaks in a 6" line under pressure I would think you’d be losing more than 180k Gal/mo. But At that cost I wouldn’t replace the whole park at once. Are the leaks in the 6" line or ins the home laterals? I would try to fund sections that are the most trouble and do sections at a time… Not just repair leaks, but upgrade sections that are causing the most problems. But a 6" line? Wouldn’t do that.
Yes, its a 6’’ water main. Presently I’m loosing 300,000-400,000 gal a month. I have already spent over 30K on repairs and I still have high water bills. I’m spinning my wheels and still have high water bills.