Hey folks, let me break down this situation for you in simple terms. So, my house is what we call a twin house, but I’ve come to realize that folks around here might not be familiar with that term. You see, it’s like a duet – I own one side, and my neighbors own the other. Legally, our place is set up as a condominium association with just two units – mine and my neighbors’.
Now, let’s talk about the garage situation. We’ve got a detached garage with two separate 2-car bays. One bay belongs to me, and the other to my neighbors. There’s a solid wall between the bays, no doors or anything in between. When the builder constructed the garage, they hooked up the electricity for the entire building – both bays – to a single electric meter. The bill for this meter is covered by our condo association, which is basically just me and my neighbors.
Currently, the garage electricity usage isn’t a big issue. We mainly use it for the garage door openers and the occasional car vacuuming. But here’s the thing: I’m thinking ahead to the future, especially with the rise of electric cars. My girlfriend has an electric car, and who knows, she might move in with me one day. What if one household has an electric car and the other doesn’t, or one has one while the other has two? This could lead to a significant difference in electricity usage, maybe $100-$200 more per month for one household.
It wouldn’t be fair for the household using much less electricity to pay an equal share of the garage electric bill. So, I reached out to an electrician to explore the possibility of splitting each household’s garage circuit and connecting them to our individual house panels. Unfortunately, I hit a roadblock – turns out, it’s against code to have multiple power sources in one building unless it’s zoned as a multi-family dwelling, which I highly doubt the garage is.
So, here I am, looking for suggestions on how we can resolve this dilemma. Any bright ideas on how we could work out a fair solution for sharing the garage electricity costs in this unique living arrangement? Let’s put our heads together and figure this out!