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The Phantom Water Meter
An association once called upon Pacific Utility Audit with a strange problem: They had paid 10 monthly water bills for years without being able to track down each meter on their property. A community board member spent hours of his free time trying to find the elusive meters. As much as he searched, he never […]
True or False: Utility Audits Create More Work
When managers of businesses or associations look into a utility audit, they often have several common misconceptions about the process. Among their list of concerns, this question tends to pop up frequently: Won’t a utility audit require a lot of work from our property manager, business owner, and/or management company? In short, the answer is […]
How Much Money Will a Utility Audit Save Our Association?
Q. We’re interested in having a utility audit done for our association’s common areas, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through if it will only save us a little money. Can you estimate how much we can expect to save? A. It’s true that a complete utility audit doesn’t happen overnight. […]
A Utility Bill Audit Isn’t Enough
If you do a quick Internet search for “utility audit,” hundreds of results will immediately appear, listing companies that offer the service. Look a bit closer at these listings, and you’ll notice that almost all these companies do “utility bill auditing.” This means the company will review one or more years of your utility bills […]
Adapt Your Utility Budget to Climate Change
It’s a rare day that we don’t see some news about climate change and its effects. Extreme climate effects are on the minds of many residents of the western U.S., where severe drought persists and previously balmy coastal areas such as San Diego have turned sweltering. California (especially coastal areas) and Nevada, in particular, are […]
The Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Utility Auditing
You’d think that finding utility overcharges would be simple enough — just take a close look at your HOA or business’s utility bills, right? Not exactly. Do-it-yourself (DIY) utility auditing can backfire if you don’t know what you’re doing, as one property manager learned the hard way. This person managed an association that was always […]
Electric Bill Too High? Find a Lower Rate!
You can help your association’s residents reduce their electricity rate and bill — simply by referring them to the utility company’s website! Nearly every electric utility company has several residential rates available to its customers. Typically, it’s up to the customer to find out about these alternate rates and request the rate change. The best […]
Can a Condo Association Demand Bulk-Rate Water Billing?
Q: We are a condominium association receiving water from a utility company that bills each individual condo. Most owners occupy their units for only four to six months of the year. The piping is intertwined, and there are no water meters, so there is no true way to determine who is using the water. The […]
Pay for Performance Utility Auditing: How It Benefits You
If your business or association could recoup hundreds or thousands of dollars in utility bill overcharges and lower future utility costs while spending nothing out of pocket for this service, wouldn’t you grab this opportunity? In a nutshell, that’s Pacific Utility Audit’s “pay for performance” model — which may be just the solution you’re looking […]
Can You Fight Ever-Increasing Utility Costs?
With extreme weather and severe droughts grabbing headlines — especially in California, which is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in the state’s recorded history — rising utility costs seem unavoidable. In California, utility costs have been on an upward trend for the last quarter century, going back as far as the previous California […]