Deadline Approaches: Apartment Owners Must Decide on Unified Water Metering

As the legal deadline approaches, owners of apartments in multi-dwelling buildings in Latvia must make an economically justified decision on a unified water consumption metering system by January 1, 2027. This requirement stems from regulations stating that if the water consumption discrepancy exceeds 20% for three consecutive months, the building manager, together with the owners, must take measures to eliminate it.

In Riga, at 107 Lielvārdes Street, the first successful pilot project of smart water meters in a multi-apartment building in Latvia was completed. It was implemented by the building manager SIA "Pilsētas mājas" in cooperation with LMT. In the 71-apartment building, all mechanical meters were replaced with new-generation remote-reading meters.

The results showed significant improvement. While in the first quarter of 2025 the water discrepancy amounted to €876.15 in monetary terms, in the first four months after installing the smart meters, the discrepancy virtually disappeared. Gunta Tkačuka, board member of SIA "Pilsētas mājas", notes that water losses have been a persistent problem that could not be fully resolved with old technologies. Kaspars Egliņš, head of IoT business at LMT, emphasizes that smart meters provide accurate metering, allow early detection of leaks, and reduce daily concerns for both the manager and residents.

SIA "Pilsētas mājas" has been operating since 2020 and currently manages 47 multi-apartment buildings with a total area of 161,180 m². The company plans to apply the experience from the pilot project to other managed buildings.