Nowadays people have multiple rental properties and they always count on costs. The purpose of giving property on rent is to keep it clean and earn profit. The utility bills are very important part your property maintenance cost. As a landlord, you should take some steps to reduce utility bills and increase your profit.
Reasons for High Utility Bills
The Utility Bills mainly contain three kind of bills and payments. The first one is tax, second one is electricity bill and third one is water bill. Here the term, tax includes all the property tax and municipal tax you need to pay to concerned government department. Let us understand the possible reasons for high utility bills.
Higher Amount of Taxes
The taxes are important and you have to pay it time to time. However, you may not know much about tax deduction benefits and rebates. Therefore you get higher amount of taxes every time and you keep paying from your wallet.
High Electricity Bill Payment
The electricity bill is totally dependent on the energy used at your place. For example: You own a house and want to give it on rent. So the electricity bill will be computed on the basis of power consumption by the equipment in your house. If you have lights, AC, refrigerator and other appliances that consume more energy then your electricity bill will be definitely higher.
High Water Bill
There are some equipment in your house that require consistent use of water. This list includes all the plumbing, faucets, showers, toilets, washing machine and other appliances. If you are using products that take up high amount of water then it will increase your water bill amount.
How Landlords Can Reduce Utility Bills
You can earn profit by renting your non using properties. But the utility bills are under your responsibility as you are the landlord or owner of the property. Now we will tell you how you can increase your profit. Well, you can do one of the two things i.e. either increase the property rent or reduce the utility bills.
You don’t need our suggestions to set the rent amount for your property. We are here to guide you about how you can reduce utility bills in an easier way.
How to Reduce Taxes
The taxes are applicable as per tax laws and you have to obey the laws. You should talk to your tax consultant and learn how you can reduce the taxes payable without breaking any rules. The tax expert can help you get tax deduction and rebate as applicable for your property.
How to Reduce Water Bills
In order to reduce your water bills, you will have to reduce the water consumption. Don’t worry, you don’t need to ask your tenants to use less water. Here we provide some important tips that you should follow for reducing the water bills.
- Plumbing Leaks: Summon a plumber and ask him to check whole plumbing line of the house. Check each & every faucet, shower, tap and piping connectors for leakage. If there is any water leakage, repair it immediately. Make sure the toilet is not leaking, fix it too if required.
- Get Low Flow Showers: The shower can use a large amount of water when several persons use it everyday. You should get the most low flow shower heads so that you can save a lot of water everyday. Even the low flow shower heads throw 2.5 gallons of water per minute.
- Upgrade the Toilet: A regular toilet uses 1.6 gallons of water per flush. You should replace it with a WaterSense Certified toilet that uses only 1.28 gallons of water. You can also get a 1G toilet that costs a bit more but uses only 1.0 gallon of water. You can also get a dual flush toilet. You can check best toilet reviews here.
- Get Aerated Faucets: The normal faucets have flow rate of around 1.5 gallons of water per minute. You should replace those with latest aerated faucets which throw the mixture of air and water. They can wash hands and utensils more effectively and still use less amount of water.
- Change the Washing Machine: Check the current washing machine you have. Make sure it is not consuming high amount of water. If it is so then you need to replace it with a water efficient and energy efficient washing machine.
How to Reduce Electricity Bills
Electricity Bill shows how much energy you have consumed in a month. The energy consumption is based on the electric lights and appliances you have in your property (rented house). Kindly check the tips mentioned here to reduce the electricity bills.
- Energy Efficient Lights: The latest LED bulbs and lights are quite energy efficient. You need to change those old high power lights and install the new energy saving lights in your house. The light amount will remain the same but the amount of electricity used will be reduced.
- Change Old Appliances: You may have AC, refrigerator, washing machine, TV many other electric or electronic appliances. If they are too old and high power consuming then you should change them with new energy star rated appliances. The new appliances consume less electricity and provide better performance.
- Turn Down Water Heater Temperature: The water heater has high temperature level up to 140 degree. You can turn this down to 120 degree or less as you want. Don’t worry, the performance of heater will still be the same, only the energy consumption will reduce.
- Clean HVAC Filters: The HVAC unit works properly and efficiently only when its filters are clean. If the filters are dirty, the performance of HVAC will also reduce. Therefore you should clean the HVAC filters once in several months to get its best performance.
- Insulate Attic: In order to reduce energy consumption, you need to insulate some area of your house. This includes open areas like attic, crawl spaces and others. After proper insulation, the appliances in your house will be able to maintain perfect warmth in winter and perfect cooling in summer.
In this way, the landlords can reduce utility bills and increase their profit from the rented property.
