Water Meters

In the frigid northeast where water pipes need protection from freezing, my residents use the “running the tap” method (thereby overflowing the septic system) instead of insulation and heating tape.I am therefore planning to install water meters in my 45 lot MHPWhat size do I need, will 1/2 inch suffice for a good flow?I have seen 3/4 inch plastic meters starting at $49.00 to stainless steel and brass meters up to $299.00. Any help here?Does it pay to invest in remote reading equipment or should I let my manager do the rounds every month  Also how should I structure the water fees. Should I charge from the first drop like the city that is just one mile up the road. Or should I continue to offer free water at a base usage and just charge for overageDo I need new leases to be signed with that new charge in order to be able to enforce payment?Any help and anecdotal experience would be appreciatedBestIsaac

Call your local MHA.  Above all else, if you charge for water, you just don’t want to be deemed a ‘utility company.’  That will subject you to intense reporting requirements.  Just charge for the water what it costs you.We like the Minomess 130 meters.  They have both an ‘untamperable’ main meter that is in-line with the water pipe (usual up under the home) and a digital readout on an 8’ cable that we mount on the outside of the home for easy reading.We’ve not done remote reading.  It’s a gray area, so do what works for you.  But we settled against it because:1. The remote reading device costs about $1,000 each.  For the one park where we needed this, the managers were turning over frequently.  We feared a manager might steal the reader, or just accidentally take it with them if/when they moved out.  Thats a significant hidden cost to remote reading.2. We did not think it to be that much of a problem for our manager to just go around manually and read the meters.So that’s where we’ve settled out on remote readers.  At least so far.Your mileage may vary,-jl-