Wonder if they’re worried about people gaming the system somehow... like, could someone just go on vacation and get a bonus for not using water?
Haha, that’d be a dream—get paid for taking a trip? But honestly, there’s probably a way to make it fair. Step one: track your average usage over, say, six months. Step two: compare it to your new usage after upgrades or lifestyle changes. If you’re consistently lower, rebate time. Sure, someone might try to game it, but most of us just want our spa showers and lush lawns without the paperwork mountain.
I get what you mean about gaming the system, but honestly, how much could someone really save by being gone for a week or two? I’d think the bigger issue is folks who already use very little water—would they still qualify for rebates if they can’t cut back much more? When we built our place, we went with low-flow everything and drought-tolerant landscaping, so our baseline’s already pretty low. Wonder if cities would factor that in, or if it’d just reward people who had lots of room to improve...
That’s a good point about folks who already have efficient setups. If the rebate is just based on percentage reduction, it could end up favoring people with wasteful habits to start with. Maybe a tiered system would make more sense? Curious if anyone’s seen cities try something like that—where they account for your starting usage before setting targets.
I’ve seen a few cities try “baseline” systems where your rebate or penalty is based on your historical average. It’s not perfect, but it does reward folks who’ve already made the effort to be efficient. Honestly, I think tiered incentives make way more sense—otherwise, you’re just encouraging people to waste first, then save. That’s backwards.
I get what you’re saying about the baseline thing being a bit backwards. I’ve seen projects where folks game the system—crank up their usage before the program starts, then “save” later for a bigger rebate. Not exactly what the city had in mind. Tiered incentives seem fairer, but they can get complicated fast, especially when you’re dealing with multi-family buildings or mixed-use developments. Sometimes it feels like you need a spreadsheet just to figure out if you’re saving money or not...
