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Just Released: Effective Water Conservation Strategies Help Apartment Owners Save Money and Preserve Resources

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With increasing water and energy costs and water treatment requirements becoming more stringent, apartment owners are becoming ever more interested in water conservation strategies for their tenants.

While it may be difficult to persuade tenants to conserve water when water rates are included in rental rates, physical modifications can be made to decrease resident consumption. To help multifamily property owners, managers, and contractors implement water conservation measures, HUD and the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) has published two guides, "Overview of Retrofit Strategies: A Guide for Apartment Owners and Managers" and "Retrofitting Apartment Buildings to Conserve Water: A Guide for Managers, Engineers, and Contractors."

The first guide, Overview of Retrofit Strategies, uses layman's terms to explain water conservation techniques that property managers can easily deploy. Approaches covered in the Overview require only modest investment and minimal construction. The guide offers insights on how to select a retrofit strategy and the costs and benefits associated with various water conservation measures. The combination of user-friendly language and cost/benefit analyses allows owners and managers to select the most appropriate conservation measures for their particular situations.

"Retrofitting Apartment Buildings to Conserve Water: A Guide for Managers, Engineers, and Contractors," contains information to help engineers and contactors evaluate conditions and select water conservation strategies appropriate for different types of property. The Guide looks at planning water conservation strategies in six steps:
1. Information Gathering
2. Water Audit
3. Water Savings Assessment
4. Strategy Selection
5. Implementation Plan
6. Periodic Monitoring

These new PATH publications can help multifamily property owners and managers balance the costs of implementing conservation measures with the need to provide affordable housing for America's families. "Overview of Retrofit Strategies: A Guide for Apartment Owners and Managers" is available at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/destech/overview_retrofit_strategies.html and "Retrofitting Apartment Buildings to Conserve Water: A Guide for Managers, Engineers, and Contractors" can be found at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/destech/retrofitting.html.

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1-800-245-2691
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