terry wrote:
On Sep 24, 9:04 pm, Blattus Slafaly
wrote:
cm wrote:
I have a lighted sign on a commercial building that I need to meter
so we can determine the electric use and divide it between the
three tenants on the property. Are there any simple meters besides
a typical meter and socket used on most homes and business. Is
there another way to determine the usage?

Thanks,

cm

How many watts is it? 1000 watts for 1 hour is 1 kwh (1 kilowatt
hour) Times 24 hours is 24 kwh times 30 days is 720 kwh times .07
per kilowatt hour is $50.40 a month divided by 3 is $16.80 each.

Then see your electric rates and do the math per kilowatt hour.

--
Blattus Slafaly ? 3 7/8

Agree unless it is giganticus sign using many kilowatts it should be
pretty easy to calculate how much electrcity it uses and just
apportion that.

For example suppose the sign uses 500 watts. So for one hour that is
half a kilowatt hour.

If electrcity costs ten cents per kilowatt hour that sign will cost 5
cents for every hour it is on.

Even if that 500 watt sign is on continuously for a month (720hrs) it
will only cost approx. $36.

Anyway: Divide the $36 up four ways. One quarter for each tenant and
one quarter for yourself. That will create good will when the tenants
get one third of the usage of the sign and it will only cost you $9.
It's your building after all?

On other hand if it's only on at night it will probably cost less
than $20 bucks/month, hardly worth bothering about?

But apportioning such a minor item seems rather unproductive and time
wasting?
It's not like trying to share a $600 snow clearing bill between three
tenants!

Or you could do like my old landlord (whose name was Satan). Hire your
brother-in-law to do the common area maintenance. When the tenants complain,
show them the invoice (at ten times the going rate), go through the math
based on square footage, and declare they're paying a fair pro-rata amount.