We haven't opened yet but figuring out the water usage estimate should be pretty straight forward. Looks like you're going to be in Ferndale, MI right? Sewer and water are the same bill but the bill is based on water consumption. $99.00 per MCF (1000 cubic feet). First you need to convert MCF to gallons.

1 MCF = 7480 gal

They also seem to bill in units of 1/10 MCF with each unit costing $9.90. So now you can figure out how many gallons are in a billed unit.

7480 gal / 10 = 748 gal/unit

Now you'll need to figure how much water you'll be using. First we'll figure out how much shower water you'll use per float - that should be easy. Shower heads are rated on flow rates in gallons per minute. We'll say the shower head you use for your center is rated at 5 gal/min and you're running a shower before and after the float at an average of 5 min each.

5 gal/min X 5 min x 2 showers = 50 gal of shower per float

Figuring out the water usage for a washing machine is similar. First you need to know how much laundry you'll be generating per float. This is dependent on your setup but we'll assume your clients use 3 towels and you use 1 to clean for a total of 4. Let's say a damp towel weighs 2 lbs and you've purchased a fairly decent front load washer that can handle 16 lbs without over stuffing it. Your washer also uses roughly 45 gallons per cycle. Now we can figure out the usage.

16 lbs capacity / (4 towels x 2 lbs each) = 2 floats per load

45 gal per load / 2 floats per load = 23 gal of wash per float

And now the total water used per float...

23 gal of wash + 50 gal of shower = 73 gallons total usage per float

With that number you can now estimate how much your direct cost of water is per float. All you need to do is figure out the number of floats you can fit in a billable unit and divide the price by the number of floats.

748 gal per unit / 73 gal per float = 10 floats per unit

$9.90 per unit / 10 floats per unit = $.99 of water per float

Now that you know that you can figure out the direct cost based on the how many floats you offer per month and your capacity utilization. Because the water is billed in units I'm assuming that you'll be billed the same for 1-10 floats, 11-20 floats, etc. There may also be service charges involved so keep that in mind. Add some padding in there for miscellaneous laundry, restroom usage and the like and you should be good to go.

Hope that helps and anyone who thinks I did this wrong please comment. I need to know too!

Brent