Everything You Should Know About Water Sub-Meters for Multi-Unit Premises
In Queensland most multi-unit premises built before 1 January 2008 (and pre-2014 in New South Wales) have only one water meter to service and measure water usage for the entire complex.
Each unit or apartment is then billed according to the contribution schedule lot entitlements (CSLE) within the scheme, resulting in owners or their tenants paying an equal portion of the total bill, irrespective of how large the premises, how many occupants work or live within it, or how much water is consumed.
For Body Corporates wishing to install individual water meters (known as sub-meters) for each lot, there are two options:
- Install Council or the local water service provider meters according to their technical specifications (e.g. Gold Coast, Unitywater, UrbanUtilities, Logan, Redland, Toowoomba), or
- Implement a private metering solution, for which Council and water service providers make provision in their policies (e.g. Scenario 1 in City of Gold Coast – Water Sub-Metering and Billing for Community Titles Scheme Properties Policy.)
The feasibility of each option is highly dependent on the plumbing infrastructure in place, including the location of the isolator valve for each unit. A licenced plumber is the best person to advise and quote on all available options.
Given the accessibility requirements for sub-meter reading by water providers or their agents, retrofitting these sub-meters may be impractical or prohibitively expensive. For example, if you have a stop tap that is located within your unit or lot, ordinarily you would need to reroute plumbing to locate the stop tap and meter in an approved location on common property.
Where the installation of council meters is not feasible, private metering may present an affordable and effective alternative.
As private sub-meters are not used for direct billing by water authorities, it is not necessary for them to conform to their Metering Technical Specifications. However, the sub-maters are required to have WaterMark certification and to be Pattern Approved for billing purposes by the NMI. They must also be installed by a licenced plumber in accordance with AS3500 and the PCA (Plumbing Code of Australia).
Private metering does not interfere with your council or water service provider’s reading of the main meter. Service Charges continue to be invoiced to the individual unit owner by their Council or water provider with any applicable subsidy or concession still applied to the individual’s account.
If your scheme is not already bulk billed, your body corporate enters into a new billing agreement with your council or local water service provider to issue a quarterly bulk bill for the total water usage of the complex. This is sometimes referred to as a Body Corporate All Consumption (BCAC) arrangement. Private sub-meter readings are then used by a third-party billing agent, such as Fair Water Bills, to invoice individual unit owners Water Usage Charges according to their measured water consumption.
If you are interested in finding out more about individual water meters for units/apartments, please contact the Fair Water Meters team.
*Please note that from 1st January 2008, individual meters (sub-metering) became mandatory for all new schemes in Queensland.
Resources:
City of Gold Coast – Water Sub-Metering and Billing Arrangements For Community Titles Schemes Policy
