Submeter Water in Texas

One of the parks I’m interested desparately needs to have the water submetered. Does anyone have any experience getting this done in Texas? How much should I budget for the project per lot (labor & material) ? Any recommended vendor? Do I need to work with the water department on this? I am leaning toward a system which can transmit the readings automatically or semi-automatically for ease of management, but have not looked into the cost difference compared to a simple manual system.

I plan to call Edison Micro Utilities, but I wanted to see if any one here has gone through this exercise already.

thanks in advance.

vickie

Vickie,

We have submetered two mobile home parks in Texas. The first park the city gave us the option to use their water meters and they would bill the residents directly. There was a $100 deposit per a water meter. The second option would be for us to buy our own water meters and bill directly. We chose the first option so that we did not have to worry about billing tenants each month. We had the tenant pay the $100 deposit fee.

The second park we only had the option of buying our own water meters and installing ourselves.

In both parks we had a handyman install the water meters. The cost was roughly $30-$40 per a meter. We bought the basic water meter for $32.50 (see MHU.com great links page for contact info). You can certainly buy fancier models for $100 or more that can transmit readings, etc.

Corey

Thank, Corey.

I just got some feedback on this same question from a park owner in TX. He said you have to file a form with TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) in order to do this.

I have an offer in on a park in Texas right now and it also needs submetering. If I get it, I plan to install the fancy meters that can be read remotely. Hey, I got better things to do with my tired, old eyes than reading meters:-)

Rolf

We work with the TCEQ on one of our MH Parks in Dallas for the permit to operate a wastewater treatement plant. It is my understanding that the only time we would need to file with the state about submetering sewer is when it is a private wastewater treatment plant. We do not submeter sewer at this park due to the “hoops” we would need to go through with the state to became a reseller.

Corey