help with apartment utility cost

I am going to move soon and the guy said the apartment is Rent plus utilities i.e...electric and oil "forced hot air heat"...So he says it could be split 4 ways because the front house has 3 people and me in the back section...now to me that seems strange,,the front is obviously alot bigger than my area...i am sure i would not be consuming 1/4 of the utilities.

Is there a way to estimate utility usage cost?....TV and internet is another story,,they have dish there with that i'd have to just get a box somehow and pay the fee for the box which is nominal,,,and the internet i don't know if it is provided by dish. I am going to have to call around i know the address so with that they should be able to tell me something..I am deffenitly going to get all this in order before i sign the lease agreement.

I'm not sure if this may help you but there's a product you can purchase called P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor that you may calculate your actual electricity usage.

If you can't control your own heat I would walk away form that place. No good ever comes when you have to share utility's cost with other apartment

I have heard of that, How is that going to help me with the overhead lights in the kitchen, andf the stove though? thanks for the reply

CLHC said:

I'm not sure if this may help you but there's a product you can purchase called P3 International P4460 Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor that you may calculate your actual electricity usage.

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I would have my own heat zone. I actually am going to meet with the guy tomorrow to discuss some of those things befroe the lease,,like i said i am not going to use 1/4 of the utilities

Saber in PA said:

If you can't control your own heat I would walk away form that place. No good ever comes when you have to share utility's cost with other apartment

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actually your heating problem may be worse than you expect. Your own heat zone will not solve a more fundamental problem. My younger daughter rented an apt with a very similar setup as you described - 3 in front and she had a small side/back apt. The problem with the common heat was common air - and one of those 3 in the front section smoked. Just before she moved in, they renovated her apt and separated the electricity. Nevertheless, she eventually had to move out because of the cigarette smoke and noisy parties.

I have a few copies of the Kill-a-watt EZ device which also covers the functionality of the lower-cost version such as Volts, Amps, PF, etc. I have no complaints - functions as advertised. You could use only wall outlets for lighting and set up one of these as a distribution point for each room. However an electric stove would be very difficult to separate out consumption since that is probably 240VAC.

I don't have any experience with this kind of situation, but my thought on this is to imagine what the situation would be if he said: "utilities included". If he said that, what he'd be doing behind the scenes is to split the annual bills and charge rent appropriate to that. How would he do the split? However he wanted to - probably proportionately/evenly to the rent paid. Does that exactly match usage? No. It is what it is.

Ask to see what previous electric and oil bills are and include that cost in your final decision. If this is how the front apartment lease is written, then it is what it is and you should just ask for lower rent to compensate.

well the front is a 3 bedroom kitchen bath living room,,not a very large home,,the back where i may rent has a kitchen area when you go in about 15'x8' off that is about a 15'x18' living/bedroom area and the bathroom is off that

2000xlt said:

I am going to move soon and the guy said the apartment is Rent plus utilities i.e...electric and oil "forced hot air heat"...So he says it could be split 4 ways because the front house has 3 people and me in the back section...now to me that seems strange,,the front is obviously alot bigger than my area...i am sure i would not be consuming 1/4 of the utilities.

Is there a way to estimate utility usage cost?....TV and internet is another story,,they have dish there with that i'd have to just get a box somehow and pay the fee for the box which is nominal,,,and the internet i don't know if it is provided by dish. I am going to have to call around i know the address so with that they should be able to tell me something..I am deffenitly going to get all this in order before i sign the lease agreement.

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As you describe it here and below, I don't see why you would not consume 1/4 of the utilities if not even more.

The amount of heating required is not proportional to living area, but exterior wall surface ..... and you likely have more than 1/4 of the exterior wall surface?

In terms of electricity, just make sure they are not running electric heaters .... which given they are paying 3/4 of cost, odds are they are not. If you are in the house roughly the same amount of time, then odds are they are not using 3 times the electricity you are. Actually you are probably using more than 1/4 as whereever you are, you are using electricity ... just for you. It takes the same amount of electricity to light a room for one person as it does for 3.

It may not seem fair, but I would expect you are actually getting the better deal here.

As another pointed out though, just find out what the current bills are.

Semiman

Yep i hear ya,,He is actually asking $650 plus the other stuff,,that is not bad in my opinion

Not to de-rail my thread, did the forum format just change "within" a post? Or did i screw up something