Ending estimated water bills in a sectional-title complex

The challenge

The complex receives one municipal water bill. Units are recharged from readings a contractor takes when access allows, and estimates fill the gaps. When the units don’t add up to the bulk meter, the difference lands in the levy and every owner pays for it.

Disputes fill trustee meetings. A running toilet or a burst pipe behind a wall can go unnoticed for a whole billing cycle, and by the time the bill arrives the water is long gone.

Our approach

1. 01

   Meter survey

   We record where every unit meter sits, whether it can be read remotely or needs replacing, and where common-area water for gardens, the pool and the clubhouse is drawn from.

2. 02

   Smart sub-metering

   Each unit gets a smart meter, read automatically through data concentrators in the meter rooms. Common areas are metered separately, so communal use is visible instead of hidden in the levy.

3. 03

   Bulk-meter reconciliation

   Unit readings are compared against the municipal bulk meter every day. A growing gap points to a leak on the shared pipes or an unmetered connection, not a billing mystery.

4. 04

   Alerts and billing

   Continuous overnight flow on a unit raises a leak alert to the owner or managing agent. Monthly bills come from actual readings and export straight into the managing agent’s billing system.

System architecture

How the layers connect, from the people using the system down to the equipment in the field.

What we’d deploy

• A smart water meter on every unit, read automatically
• Separate metering for gardens, pool and clubhouse
• Daily reconciliation of unit totals against the bulk meter
• Overnight-flow leak alerts to owners and the managing agent
• Tamper and communication alarms on every meter
• Billing export from actual readings, with no estimates

Target outcomes

Targets we would design and report against, not measured results from a named client. Actual results depend on the baseline established in the audit.