The buildings being submitted for LEED Certification have irrigation submeters installed but the meters are owned by the local Utility Company and are not accessible to project Engineers for readings. The utility company provides meter data at regular, monthly intervals. The process is stated in their current meter reading system documentation as follows: "The primary purpose of this system is to produce the water bills. This system tracks general customer information, meter readings, installed meter inventory/locations, consumption history, customer payment and amount due information, billing rates and work orders. All of these are consolidated and appear on a single water bill which customers receive each month." We believe a regular, monthly interval is sufficient to identify consumption patterns and allow for an analysis of time trends; therefore, where daily and weekly meter readings are not feasible, we propose the following uploads be accepted as supporting documentation to satisfy these credits: 1. Excerpt from the local Utility Company\'s Meter System describing the current meter reading system and its limitations, if noted 2. Graphical trend data extracted from the water data information in Energy Star. Project team members will download water meter data from Energy Star and create monthly and annual trend graphs showing historical water usage 3. Copies of water bills for the entire performance period - these contain graphical consumption data in the top, right corner of the bills. The data is compiled by the Utility company Please advise if the approach listed above will qualify us for WE credits 1.1 and 1.2.
Monthly water meter readings do not meet the credit requirements or intent for continuous data logging of water consumption. Monthly reading by the utility is standard practice and does not reflect environmental or industry best practice. The credit cannot be earned unless daily or weekly data is collected, through automated BAS readings or manual readings. Applicable Internationally.UPDATE 10/1/2012 - If daily or weekly manual readings are not possible due to lack of access or staffing limitations, the credit may still be earned by installing a new automatic electronic data logging meter.