Water & electricity

Water

Bagamoya, like a lot of older apartment blocks, has a single municipal pipe providing water to the entire building. The meter for this is on Brunswick street at the back, under a manhole cover on the sidewalk.

The cost of water is currently just divided between all of the units, regardless of consumption, since it isn’t currently possible to measure the water use of each individual unit.

The city inspectors have access to read our water meter and bill us the appropriate amount.

Werner tracks our water usage (from our CoCT bills) to look for sudden spikes in average daily usage, which could indicate an issue.

Tracked here⁠

(The monthly average that each flat paid for water for 2024 was R131 per month. Even though it means some are subsidising others’ water, the labour effort and cost of getting individual water meters installed and individual water use billed to the individuals apartments would be high.)

Electricity

The electricity room is on the ground floor, next to unit 3. The key is in the lock box. Code 1995.

The key is now kept in the lock box, attached to the electricity room. Code 1995. This code can be changed every year or so, as is needed.

Electricity is fed from the municipality to the electricity room, from where it is divided to the individual units (and the common property).

⁠

The top half shows the electricity readings for each unit. Once a month one of the trustees (thanks, Melani!) sends a photo of this to both the Bagamoya WhatsApp group and to Steer, who calculates and charges the amounts due to each unit, including the common use areas.

The bottom half has switches to disable electricity for the individual units, and a mains switch to turn off all electricity for the block in case of leakage or other emergency.

The on-off timer for the corridor lights is on the bottom left of the panel.

⁠

Here, it is set to turn on at 18:00 and turn off at 06:00. This can be adjusted seasonally, based on the times for sunrise and sunset. The inner most dial shows the current time; turn it to make sure it is accurate. To turn on all corridor lights (for instance during the day, while the timer is off), turn the small ON/OFF dial at the top right of the timer switch.

Also in this room are a ladder, garden tools, and other things that Farrington uses on the property.

Consider experimenting with load-shedding bulbs, especially for the lights under the staircases, if and when load shedding becomes a problem again.

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