Reviewed by Gary E. Wilson, President & Designated Broker · Managing Greater Seattle rentals since 1982
In most manufactured home communities the operator owns the utility distribution beyond the meter — the water mains running under the roads, the sewer collection system, and often the electrical distribution to each site. That infrastructure is invisible, buried, frequently fifty or sixty years old, and it is the largest single source of unbudgeted capital events in the asset class.
It is also the reason two communities with identical lot rents can have completely different net operating income. One is passing through utility costs accurately and replacing pipe on a plan. The other is absorbing the cost of water it never bills for, leaking into ground it does not monitor, until a main fails under a road.
Wilson Management manages utility infrastructure for manufactured home communities in the Puget Sound region. For the wider service see Mobile Home Park Management.
What the Operator Typically Owns
The dividing line between the utility's responsibility and the community's is the master meter. Upstream of it the utility maintains the system; downstream, everything belongs to the community.
Water distribution — mains, service lines to each site, valves, hydrants where present, and backflow prevention. Ageing galvanised or early plastic pipe is common in communities built in the 1960s and 70s, and both fail in characteristic ways.
Sewer collection — lines from each site to the point of connection, cleanouts, and lift stations where the topography requires them. Lift stations are mechanical, they fail, and their failure is immediate and unpleasant.
Electrical distribution — pedestals, feeders and site connections where the community distributes rather than each home being served directly by the utility.
Stormwater — catch basins, drainage lines and any detention or treatment facilities, which in this region matter more than owners often assume.
Communities where each home is separately served and metered by the utility have a materially simpler and cheaper operating picture. Establishing which model applies is the first thing to determine at any community, and it is not always documented.
Master Metering and Utility Recovery
Where a community is master metered, the utility bills the community for total consumption and the community recovers it from residents. How that recovery works determines whether it functions or leaks money.
Flat-rate recovery — a fixed monthly charge regardless of use — is simple and has an obvious failure mode: residents have no reason to conserve, and the community absorbs everything above what it collects. In a wet-climate community with irrigation and ageing pipe, that gap can be substantial.
Submetering — measuring each site's actual consumption and billing accordingly — aligns the incentive, typically reduces total consumption noticeably once residents see their own usage, and makes leaks visible at the site level. It requires meters, reading infrastructure, billing administration and compliance with the applicable requirements for how utilities may be billed to residents.
The difference between total consumption at the master meter and the sum of what is billed to sites is one of the most useful numbers in the whole operation. A persistent and growing gap is a leak, and it is often the only warning available before the failure surfaces.
Finding Leaks Before They Find You
Buried water leaks in a manufactured home community can run for years. The ground absorbs the water, no one sees it, and the only symptom is a water bill that has quietly grown.
The monitoring that works is comparative rather than absolute. Master meter consumption tracked over time, compared against billed consumption at sites, with attention to the overnight minimum — a community with genuinely low use at 3am and a master meter still turning is losing water somewhere.
Once a loss is established, locating it is specialist work: acoustic detection, pressure testing by zone, and isolation using the valve network. Communities whose valves have seized — common where nothing has been exercised in decades — cannot isolate zones at all, which turns leak location into excavation. Exercising valves periodically is cheap insurance against that.
Planning Replacement
Buried infrastructure has a life, and in many Puget Sound communities that life is either approaching its end or past it.
Planned replacement is disruptive, expensive and schedulable. Emergency replacement is all of those plus unplanned: a main failing under a road in February means excavation in poor conditions, residents without water, and whatever price the available contractor names.
The plan needs the material and age of each section, its failure history, and its condition where that can be established. Failure history is the most useful signal available — a section that has been repaired three times is telling you clearly what the next several years look like.
Sequencing matters as much as budgeting. Replacement is far cheaper when coordinated with other work in the same ground: doing water main replacement at the same time as a road resurfacing avoids paying twice to open the same trench. That coordination only happens where both are on a plan. See Capital Planning.
Resident-Side Responsibilities
The boundary between the community's infrastructure and the resident's is worth stating clearly in the rental agreement, because it will be tested.
Typically the community maintains distribution up to the site connection and the resident is responsible from there — the connections under and into their own home, and any plumbing within it. Residents also own the consequences of what they put into the sewer, and blockages caused by a specific site are frequently recoverable from that resident where the agreement provides for it.
Freeze protection deserves specific mention in this region. Exposed water lines under homes freeze, split, and produce both a repair and a substantial water loss. Reminding residents ahead of a cold snap is cheap and effective.
When the Community Runs Its Own Water System
Some communities do not buy water from a municipal supplier at all. They draw it from their own well or source, which changes the operator's position entirely: the community is no longer a customer of a utility, it is the utility.
That brings monitoring, testing, reporting, treatment and operator certification obligations, along with the responsibility for water quality delivered to residents. It is a genuinely different undertaking from maintaining distribution downstream of a municipal meter, and the compliance burden is continuous rather than occasional.
The failure that matters here is assuming the obligations are lighter than they are. A community that has drifted out of its testing and reporting schedule is not merely non-compliant on paper — it has stopped verifying the quality of water it supplies to the people living there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What utilities does the community usually own?
Everything downstream of the master meter — water mains and service lines, sewer collection and any lift stations, often electrical distribution, and stormwater infrastructure. Some communities are served directly by the utility at each home, which is a much simpler picture.
Is submetering worth it?
Usually. It aligns the incentive to conserve, typically reduces total consumption, and makes site-level leaks visible. It requires meters, reading, billing administration and compliance with applicable requirements.
How do we know if we have a leak?
The gap between master meter consumption and the sum billed to sites, tracked over time. A growing gap is a leak. The overnight minimum is the sharpest signal — if the community is quiet at 3am and the master meter still turns, water is going somewhere.
Why do seized valves matter?
Because without a working valve network you cannot isolate a zone, and leak location turns into excavation. Exercising valves periodically is cheap relative to that.
When should mains be replaced?
On a plan built from material, age and failure history. A section repaired three times is telling you what the next few years hold, and planned replacement costs a fraction of a February failure under a road.
Who pays for a blockage caused by one resident?
Frequently recoverable from that resident where the rental agreement provides for it — which is a reason to have the boundary of responsibility clearly stated in the agreement.
What about freezing?
Exposed lines under homes split in a cold snap, producing both a repair and a significant water loss. Pre-emptive reminders to residents are cheap and effective.
Get Started
In a manufactured home community the buried infrastructure is the asset, and it rewards planning far more than it rewards attention after failure. Wilson Management, Inc. manages it that way.
Request a free analysis or contact us. You can also reach our Bellevue office at (425) 453-0089, 1380 112th Ave NE #203, Bellevue, WA 98004.