Cook County, Illinois
Commercial Plumbing Chicago: What Is Counted, and What Is Only Multiplied
Six cities in this series regulate commercial plumbing by measuring something. Chicago has a route that measures nothing at all, and on a building that sits on it the plumbing itself is the meter.
A non-metered account here is charged a flat rate set by the Municipal Code and calculated from building size, lot size and plumbing fixtures. Not from water. The bill is an inventory of the property, which means a fit-out that adds fixtures is a rate change with a plumbing invoice attached to it.
Then the same bill does something almost nobody notices. The sewer charge is not measured either. It is one hundred per cent of the water charge, whatever that charge was built from.
Discuss a Chicago Commercial PremisesPlumber Chicago: The Main City Page
The Assessment Is a Survey of Your Building, Not a Reading of Your Water
The City is plain about it. Non-metered accounts are assigned to properties that do not have a water meter to measure usage. Unlike metered accounts, which are charged for water actually used, non-metered accounts are charged a flat rate, per the Municipal Code of Chicago, based on factors such as building size, lot size and plumbing fixtures. The Code reference the Department of Finance gives for those charges is Chapter 11-12-270, and the breakdown of the calculation for a specific property is printed on the back of that property bill.
Take that seriously as a commercial fact rather than a curiosity. On a metered building the plumbing decisions that move the bill are the ones that change consumption: a leaking flush valve, an unattended irrigation line, a cooling process. On a non-metered building the decisions that move the bill are the ones that change the schedule of what is installed.
Which produces an incentive structure that runs the wrong way round. A non-metered operator who installs efficient fixtures does not see a lower bill from doing so, because nothing is counting the saving. A non-metered operator who adds a second staff washroom has changed the basis of an assessment. Neither of those is obvious from a utility statement, and neither is a reason to plumb a building badly, but both belong in a fit-out conversation before the drawings are finished rather than after the first bill arrives.
The bill also carries a third line that is not about your building at all. Since March 2017 utility bills include water-sewer tax charges, the revenue from which is used to make certain mandated pension payments, and the tax is charged to all non-exempt Chicago businesses and residences as a separate line item.
So a single commercial statement can contain a figure derived from a fixture count, a second figure that is just the first one again, and a third figure that funds something with no physical relationship to water. Reading it as a consumption bill will mislead an operator every time.
What Is Counted, What Is Estimated, What Is Multiplied and What Is Only Owed
Four different kinds of number appear on a Chicago commercial utility bill, and only one of them is a measurement. Sorting them is the fastest way to work out which of them a plumbing decision can actually move.
Counted: metered consumption
Metered accounts are billed on actual usage measured by the meter, in gallons or cubic feet depending on the meter type, monthly or bi-monthly depending on property type. This is the only line a leak repair reduces directly.
Counted: the building itself
A non-metered account is a flat rate computed from building size, lot size and plumbing fixtures under Municipal Code 11-12-270, with the calculation broken out on the back of the bill. A survey, not a reading.
Estimated: when nobody could read it
Where the Department cannot obtain an actual reading, because it cannot pick up the electronic signal or because access to the meter was prevented, an estimated bill is issued and trued up when a real read is obtained.
Multiplied: the sewer charge
For metered and non-metered properties alike the sewer charge is 100 per cent of the water charge, added as a separate line item on the front of the bill. It measures nothing independently.
Multiplied: the annual escalator
Since 1 June 2016 the annual water rate is adjusted upward by the previous year rate of inflation, calculated on the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, Chicago all items, capped at 105 per cent of the previous year.
Owed: everything else
The water-sewer tax, the garbage fee where collection is provided, and a late payment penalty accruing at 1.25 per cent on late balances. None of these responds to a plumbing decision at all.
The Sewer Charge Went From 83 Per Cent to 100 in Thirteen Years, and Then Stopped
The City publishes both tables, and reading them together is more informative than reading either alone. The water rate table records what a thousand cubic feet costs and when it changed. The sewer table records only a percentage, because that is all the sewer charge has ever been.
From 2002 to 2007 the sewer percentage sat at 83. It moved to 84 in 2008, 85 in 2009, 86 in 2010 and 2011, 89 in 2012, 92 in 2013, 96 in 2014, and 100 per cent on 1 January 2015, where it has remained.
The water rate moved in the same window and far harder. It rose 25 per cent on 1 January 2012, then 15 per cent in each of 2013, 2014 and 2015. Since June 2016 the mechanism has been different: an inflation-linked adjustment on the Chicago consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, capped at 105 per cent of the previous year, which has produced increases in the low single digits.
For an operator holding a long lease the compounding matters more than any single year. A multiplier that doubled a water charge into a combined charge, applied to a rate that has been rising annually by design since 2016, is a slow structural change in occupancy cost that no individual bill announces.
It also changes the arithmetic on a leak. On a metered commercial property in Chicago, water lost through a failed fitting is charged twice, once as water and once as sewer at 100 per cent of it, whether or not a drop of it reached a sewer. A dripping urinal valve on a mezzanine is billed as though every gallon were treated.
And there is no relief at the end of it. As our Chicago emergency plumbing page sets out, the Department of Finance states it is required by ordinance to bill and collect for all usage registered on the meter and that no adjustment can be made where water has been used, wasted or lost through leakage. For a commercial account that refusal is doubled by the sewer multiplier.
Two Colours of Shut-Off Notice, and They Mean Different Failures
Chicago runs its collection and access processes through coloured notices, and a facilities manager who treats them as interchangeable will answer the wrong one. The distinction is worth knowing because only one of the two is about money.
| Notice or step | What the City says it means |
|---|---|
| Orange Notice of Water Service Termination | The account is eligible for water shut-off as of the date on the notice, due to non-payment. Payment or a payment plan before that date avoids termination. |
| Yellow Notice of Water Service Termination | Shut-off is scheduled because the Department has been denied access to the water meter in the building. The route out is to contact the Department on 312.747.9090 to schedule a meter reading within ten days of the notice date. |
| Restoration after thirty days off | If water has been shut off for thirty days or more, a Release of Liability must be signed before service can be restored. |
| Illegal restoration | A $500 fine. The Department states it periodically inspects premises to determine whether water has been illegally restored. |
| Late payment | A penalty accrues at 1.25 per cent on late balances. |
| Bill dispute | Raised with Utility Billing and Customer Service on 312.744.4426. The City advises paying in the meantime to avoid late charges, with any adjustment applied as a credit. |
| Property transfer | When real property is transferred in Chicago the transferor is required by ordinance to obtain a Full Payment Certificate from the Department of Finance, which also serves as the request to move service out of the transferor name. |
| A tenant on the bill | An owner may ask for bills to be addressed to a tenant name, but the City states this does not relieve the owner of liability for unpaid utility charges. |
The yellow notice deserves a second look from anyone responsible for a building rather than an account. It is triggered by an access failure, not a payment failure, which means a locked riser cupboard, a changed door code or a meter buried behind a tenant fit-out can put a paid-up commercial property on a shut-off list. That is a plumbing and facilities problem wearing the costume of a billing problem.
Whether an Organisation Pays for Water Here Can Depend on What It Is
Most of this page is about how a charge is computed. This section is about a prior question, which is whether the charge applies to an organisation in the first place.
The Department of Finance publishes two exemptions from water and sewer charges. One is a Senior Sewer Exemption, which is a residential relief and is named here only so that a commercial reader does not go looking for it. The other is a Not-for-Profit Exemption, applied for through the same route.
The consequence is a category of Chicago building where the plumbing decisions carry a completely different weight. A charity, a place of worship or a not-for-profit institution operating under that exemption has no per-gallon reason to fix a running cistern, which does not make the repair less necessary but does remove the argument that usually gets it authorised. A contractor working across both sectors in this city should expect the same leak to be a priority in one building and a nuisance in the next, for reasons that have nothing to do with the pipe.
The water-sewer tax is worded the same way. It is charged to all non-exempt Chicago businesses and residences, which quietly confirms that exempt ones exist and that the exemption reaches beyond the base charge.
WE ARE NOT SETTING OUT THE QUALIFYING CRITERIA FOR EITHER EXEMPTION. They are administered by the Department of Finance, they turn on organisational status rather than on anything a plumber can assess, and a half-remembered eligibility rule is exactly the kind of thing a finance director would act on and regret.
The One Threshold That Stops a Commercial Project Before It Starts
There is a gate on the permitting side that a domestic job never meets and a commercial one often does, and it is worth knowing at the drawing stage rather than the application stage.
Projects that count as a regulated development under the city stormwater management ordinance require stormwater review and approval before a building permit or a sewer permit can be issued. The definition catches construction activity, excavation or grading that disturbs fifteen thousand or more square feet of substantially contiguous land in the aggregate, or creates seven thousand five hundred or more substantially contiguous square feet of at-grade impervious surface, or results in any discharge of stormwater into any waters or separate sewer system.
Two details in that definition are easy to miss and both are commercial. Square footage is calculated on the project as a whole regardless of whether construction proceeds in phases, so splitting a scheme does not split the threshold. And for the first limb, land area includes twenty five per cent of the square footage of building sidewalls that connect directly to the sewer system via side gutters, which means a tall building contributes to a land-area test through its elevations.
The ordinance does not apply to residential developments, defined as those resulting in the subdivision of land into detached single-family or two-family dwellings, and resurfacing an existing paved area alone does not constitute construction activity, excavation or grading.
We are treating this strictly as a gate and not as a fee mechanism. The way a city measures impervious surface in order to charge for it is a subject our Detroit page already carries in full, and repeating a measurement method here would add nothing. What matters on a Chicago commercial job is simply that the review sits upstream of the sewer permit, so it belongs in a programme rather than in a submission.
Six Questions Worth Asking Before a Chicago Fit-Out Is Drawn
- Is this account metered or non-metered?The account type is stated on the bill in the box beside the bill summary, as non-metered, metered or a metering programme account. Everything else on this page depends on that one word.
- If it is non-metered, what does the back of the bill say?The City prints a breakdown of the calculated charges specific to the property there. That is the only property-specific statement of what is being assessed.
- Does the fit-out change the fixture count?On a non-metered assessment that is a rate question rather than a water question, and it belongs in the same conversation as the drawings.
- Can the Department physically reach the meter?A denied access yellow notice is a shut-off route that has nothing to do with payment. Riser cupboard keys and tenant fit-outs are the usual culprits.
- Is the site anywhere near the stormwater thresholds?Fifteen thousand square feet disturbed or seven thousand five hundred of new at-grade impervious surface, calculated across the whole project. The review sits before the sewer permit.
- Is a transfer coming?The Full Payment Certificate is the transferor obligation and it is also the mechanism that moves service into the new name. Discovering it at closing is late.
Commercial Plumbing Chicago Questions, Answered Straight
Non-metered assessment, the sewer multiplier, the escalator, the notices and the exemptions.
As a flat rate set by the Municipal Code and computed from factors such as building size, lot size and plumbing fixtures, with the calculation for a specific property broken out on the back of the bill. The Department of Finance gives Chapter 11-12-270 as the reference for non-metered charges, and bills non-metered accounts monthly.
No. For both metered and non-metered properties the sewer charge is 100 per cent of the water charge and is added as a separate line item on the front of the bill. It is a multiplier rather than an independent measurement.
A great deal, over thirteen years. It sat at 83 per cent from 2002 to 2007, then moved to 84, 85, 86, 86, 89, 92 and 96 per cent in successive years, reaching 100 per cent on 1 January 2015. It has stayed at 100 per cent since.
By formula. Since 1 June 2016 the annual water rate is adjusted upwards by the previous year rate of inflation, calculated on the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, Chicago all items, for the 365 day period ending on the most recent 1 January, capped at 105 per cent of the previous year rate.
A separate line item added in March 2017, with the revenue used to make certain mandated pension payments. The City states it is charged to all non-exempt Chicago businesses and residences.
Orange means the account is eligible for shut-off due to non-payment as of the date on the notice. Yellow means shut-off is scheduled because the Department has been denied access to the meter, and the route out is to call 312.747.9090 to schedule a reading within ten days. One is a money problem, the other is a door problem.
The Department of Finance publishes a Not-for-Profit Exemption alongside a residential Senior Sewer Exemption, both applied for through the City. We are deliberately not setting out the qualifying criteria here, because eligibility turns on organisational status and is a finance question rather than a plumbing one.
An owner may ask for bills to be addressed to a tenant, but the City states this does not relieve the owner of the subject property from liability for unpaid utility charges. For a landlord that means the account exposure survives the lease arrangement.
Only above the published thresholds. A regulated development disturbs fifteen thousand or more square feet of substantially contiguous land, or creates seven thousand five hundred or more square feet of at-grade impervious surface, or discharges stormwater into any waters or separate sewer system, with square footage calculated on the project as a whole even if it is phased.
No. The City states that commercial and mixed-use properties do not qualify, along with new construction and rehabbed buildings. That means the whole private drain, including the length under the street, is a private repair at private cost, which is the single largest practical difference between a Chicago house and a Chicago shopfront.
Know Which Numbers on the Bill a Plumbing Decision Can Actually Move
Account type established before anything is drawn, fixture changes understood as a rate question on a non-metered building, meter access designed into the fit-out rather than discovered by a yellow notice, stormwater thresholds checked against the whole project, and no assumption that a commercial drain gets the help a four flat next door would. Tell us the building and the use.
Sources, and What We Deliberately Left Out
The rate history, the sewer percentage table, the inflation adjustment mechanism and the statement that the sewer charge is 100 per cent of the water charge for metered and non-metered properties alike come from the Department of Finance water and sewer rates page.
The non-metered assessment basis and its Code reference, the estimated billing rule, the orange and yellow notices, the ten day meter access window, the Release of Liability, the $500 illegal restoration fine, the 1.25 per cent late penalty, the Full Payment Certificate, the tenant billing rule, the water-sewer tax and both exemptions come from the Department of Finance utility billing questions page.
The stormwater regulated development thresholds and the rule that review precedes a building or sewer permit come from the Department of Buildings sewer permits page.
WHAT WE REFUSED TO PRINT. The non-metered rate schedule itself. The Code sets those charges by building dimension and fixture count and a partial reproduction would be a number an operator budgets against. The same goes for the qualifying criteria for either exemption. Both are Department of Finance determinations and neither is a plumbing judgement.
Deliberately not covered because other pages own them. Backflow prevention, which does not appear on this page at all, because our Phoenix commercial plumbing page carries that regime. Grease interception, which likewise appears nowhere, because our San Diego commercial plumbing page carries it. Those two allocations were written down before the first commercial page in this series was drafted and have now been held across four batches and seven pages.
Also left out: the seat threshold and exemption-by-consequence framing on our Los Angeles page; the seven permit doors on our Sacramento page; the decommissioning sequence on our Denver page; the discharge strength tariff on our Atlanta page; and the service menu, industry breakdown and maintenance agreement argument, which our national commercial plumbing page owns.
Related Chicago pages: drain cleaning, which explains the residential programme this page begins on the far side of, and emergency plumbing. For the wider region see our Illinois service areas, or get in touch.
No office, address, crew or response time of ours is stated for Chicago, and we are not claiming to be based in this city.
Everything above was read from published City of Chicago material at the time of writing. Rates, percentages, thresholds, fees and notice procedures change. Nothing here is a determination about a specific account, a tax opinion, or a substitute for asking Utility Billing and Customer Service directly.