Can You Fight Ever-Increasing Utility Costs?
Utility charges are on an upward trend with no end in sight. The good news: You can hold back and even reverse increases in electric, water, and other utility costs — with help from a utility audit.
With extreme weather and severe droughts grabbing headlines — especially in California, which is currently 
experiencing one of the worst droughts in the state’s recorded history — rising utility costs seem unavoidable. In California, utility costs have been on an upward trend for the last quarter century, going back as far as the previous California drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when water became scarce and a precious commodity.
Coupled with increases resulting from deregulation and other utility industry issues, utility costs continue to grow year over year — draining the reserve funds of HOAs, community associations, and businesses and prompting them to look for ways to reduce their utility bills.
Cut costs with utility auditing
Utilities now rank as the top budget cost for almost all associations and municipalities in California. Utility costs are exacerbated by tiered rate schedules and penalties like those recently imposed by the California state government. As associations and businesses have increased their utility budgets each year to accommodate rate increases, many have lost sight of exactly how much utilities are truly costing them. Is it possible to fight these ever-increasing costs?
Organizations have an ally in the battle against rising utility rates: a utility audit. As performed by Pacific Utility Audit, a utility audit is an in-depth examination of your organization’s utility bills, and includes a visit to your association or business’s property to inspect all the onsite utility services (e.g., water, sewer, gas, electric, telephone, trash) that are billed to your organization. Not to be confused with an energy audit, a utility audit looks at what an organization is being charged per unit, gallon, kilowatt hour, and gas therm.
PUA then compares onsite services to what the utility company has included in your bill. This in-depth audit can locate billing errors, decimal point errors, wrong-rate charges, incorrect service charges, and other overcharges to give you back money now. PUA’s utility audit can also find you lower-cost rate schedules to lower your future per-unit costs for water and other utilities.
Why Pacific Utility Audit?
As property managers in the late 1980s, the founders of Pacific Utility Audit experienced firsthand the impact of increasing utility costs — as well as the futility of trying to reduce long-term utility costs by installing energy-saving technologies and planting drought-tolerant landscaping. Out of that frustration, and a desire to help associations really make a difference in their utility bills, Pacific Utility Audit was born.
With drought conditions expanding and worsening across a number of states and the cost of utility services escalating, business owners, municipalities, property managers and board members are under more pressure than ever to lower costs for their communities and organizations. “As former property managers ourselves, Pacific Utility Audit’s staff understands the utility cost challenges organizations face. We’re dedicated to saving associations, property owners, local governments, and businesses money, and to serving as your resource in reversing the rising utility cost trend.”
Erin Kelly, Director Of Operations
Energy Audit vs. Utility Audit
Pacific Utility Audit recommends that organizations have both types of audits. What’s the difference? An energy audit examines and recommends ways that an association or business can increase water and electric conservation and reduce the total number of units used. An energy audit will recommend the use of energy conservation devices and methods, such as LED lighting, solar panels, and drought-tolerant landscaping.
A utility audit examines and recommends ways for an association, business, or other organization to reduce the per-unit cost of utilities by looking for miscalibrated meters, billing errors, tax errors, and other discrepancies that could cost your organization money.
Learn how Pacific Utility Audit can reduce your community’s per-unit charges for water, electricity, gas, and other utilities. Email us or call (800) 576-1010 to request your free utility audit proposal package.