national multiple family submetering and allocation billing program ...

create exact matches on the given criteria. It was found that often the impacted properties
(particularly submetered properties) were of more recent construction, while the in-rent
properties were of older construction. Thus, in some cases the criteria were not as “tight” as
would have been ideal 20 .
Matched Property Site Visits
After the properties were selected, the project team prepared for the matched property site
visits. As part of the participation agreement for this project, utilities agreed to assist with the site
visit effort. Depending upon each utility’s capabilities and availability during the time of the site
visits, several options were offered. The first option was that the utility performs the site visits
themselves, with the research team just providing the appropriate materials and over-the-phone
training and support. Two of the utilities chose this option (EBMUD and San Antonio). The
remaining utilities requested that a member of the research team travel to their city for on-site
assistance. At minimum, the research team member would stay to conduct at least one of the site
visits, providing materials and training for the utility to complete the rest of the visits. For the
remaining utilities, the research team member conducted all of the site visits, and was
accompanied by a representative of the utility. The site visits had two main parts:
• A brief 10-minute interview with the manager or on-site maintenance person
about the property characteristics; and
• Inspection of a random sampling of the units in order to verify plumbing fixtures.
The purpose of much of the interview was to verify answers from the manager survey.
The site visit team prepared a site visit protocol sheet for each interview that included questions
and answers from the manager survey, as well as other, new questions about the property. A
copy of the site visit protocol can be seen in Appendix A.
The site visit survey (protocol) also sought information about the property’s landscape
and irrigation. This information was important, as it could be used to verify whether or not the
analytic separation of indoor and outdoor water usage was done appropriately. Most of the
participating utilities were able to provide aerial photos or scaled maps of each selected property,
from which the irrigated area could be calculated. When this information was not available, the
site visit team used a measuring wheel to measure the irrigated area while on-site.
20
All pairs were kept within the same utility, however, not all of the key variables noted in this section could be
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