Economic and social impacts of converting to tenant metering in multi-family housing

A current trend in the multifamily housing industry is to convert heating (gas and oil) systems to tenant-metered heating systems (electric zonal heat, individual gas furnaces, secondary metering systems for boilers). Moving responsibility for heating costs directly to tenants has been shown to save energy (on the order of 15%). However, there are social and economic aspects of this type of 'energy investment' such as the impact on vacancy rates, rent levels and comfort of tenants. This paper presents the findings from a research project that surveyed the owners and tenants of 37 multifamily buildings (a total of 741 units) that had been converted from central to individual metering. In addition to the behavioral analysis, the authors gathered utility billing data which they analyzed using the Princeton Scorekeeping Method. Survey findings indicate that energy use was decreased substantially by conversion to separate heating systems. Increases in tenant-paid utility bills after conversion were not sufficient to cause hardship for most tenants, even those with modest incomes. Rent and vacancy levels remained stable after the heating system changes were made or an allocation system was installed