I recently bought a used home that had the water meter inside by the water heater. I thought that was a good idea vs under the trailer with heat tape. I’m in wi so keeping them out of the weather is appealing.
The installer is giving me some pushback saying it’s a lot of unnecessary work to install.
Anyone else locating meters inside the trailer?
We’ve installed water meters inside for most apartment applications, however almost 100% of the time the MH water sub-meters are installed on the service line prior to entering MH.
Exterior meter labor installations are far less expensive, and scheduling TOHs to meter is less intrusive. In addition, Possible meter tampering, servicing the meter, and Blocking access to the water heater are also concerns. If tenants have access to area, they’re likely to load up the closet with personal items, which may cause damage to the meter, or cause a potential water leak.
As far as a potential freezing hazard can be mitigated by using a simple plugin heat cable.
My concern with this is the liability.
Usually, the park’s responsibility ends at the exit side of the meter. What happens if the meter pops/leaks etc? I am not sure if the park’s insurance would cover water damage done to the interior of a home.
I agree with the prior comments and will add a thought or two.
I own a community in southern Minnesota. We were required by the city water service technician to install all meters inside homes. Since installation we have had many lines break between the water riser beneath the home and the meter in the home. In most cases, this was due to the failure or absence of heat tape. Knowing that they will not be responsible for water line breaks prior to the meter, tenants are much less diligent about checking and maintaining heat tape. We have also had water lines tapped into prior to entering the meter.
In such situations the cost of “unmetered” water falls to the community. We are charged for any discrepancy between water passing through the community main meters and the total usage of all individual homes (from individual home meter readings). The decision by the city technician, which was contrary to the plumbers’ recommendations and standard practice, has been very expensive for us. To their credit, the city does monitor water flow and lets us know if a water usage “spike” for individual homes has occurred. But because of the location of the meter (inside the home) the ability to quickly detect a leak is greatly compromised as any water loss is spread over the entire community rather than a single home.
I realize you are talking about a single home in this situation but given the choice I would not even consider installing a meter inside the home.
Thanks for things I would not have thought of. I think I’ll keep them outside.
My location is cold spot in the nation several times a year. We locate meters under the manufactured homes and use frostex brand heat tape, foam pipe insulation on pipe, and couple of figure 8s around the meter and use fiberglass pipe wrap with plastic wrap to stop the wind. We have very few problems.
