City ‘smart’ meters for water…….

Got mine @ house in city about 15 years ago, 2 guys in basement about 1 hour to install no issues, water cost stayed about the same as with older meter. Before city employees (I think 4 total) had to walk near the meters to get the reading. So 2 guys less on city payroll and 2 transferred to helping with street work & a couple less pickups.

Our R E C @ farm when updating their "switch makes sense system" went to similar for electric about 7-8 years ago. Now they don't have 2 F T & 1 P T guys in pickups driving around several counties reading meters 5 days a week. Got rid of 3 4x4 pickups & 2+ men.

Both systems send useage data at to a central computer.

AC 200, CAH, AC185D bareback, AC 180D bareback, D17 III, WF. D17 Blackbar grill, NF. D15 SFW. Case 1175 CAH, Bobcat 543B,

The term 'smart meter' is a bit of misnomer... there's nothing of any exceptional intelligence, it's just a meter that has a short-range data transmitter. There's a receiver unit in a vehicle, when they drive down the neighborhood, it gathers up all the meter readings and transmits them to the utility's computer system for billing.

It is 'smart' in that it allows a part-time wage-earner to accomplish an entire city read in the time it would have taken 100 walking readers to do a couple neighborhoods. To make things even more 'streamlined', many utility companies have their billing system set up to process based on 'estimation' on their regular billing date, and at the next billing date, they add or subtract from that estimation based on whatever usage volume change occurred at the read date.

The way they accomplish this is pretty simple... they have a year or two's worth of readings, and their system computes a 'daily average'. Let's say that your daily average for a given weekday (like a Monday) is 200 gallons, and that's about same per day 'till Friday, when you might use 350, and 500 on Saturday, 400 on Sunday... like you're watering flowers, washing a car, or just taking a few more showers after doing yard work... so the billing system says your meter was at 21843 on Saturday the 1st... and they're billing you through the following 30'th, they say the daily average of all those days would likely put you at so many mondays, tuesdays etc., on the average... and they bill you for that. Now, halfway through the month, they get a reading that says you're slightly LESS by THAT day, than your daily average... so they apply a little math (integration and derivation) to 'weight' the next month's daily averages. By three-four months, with over 2 years' meter records, they'll have that bill down to really-darned-close.

UNLESS you have a leak somewhere... a running toilet, or a broken irrigation line in your yard...

in which case, the 'smart meter' really isn't about the METERING, it's about the DATA HANDLING... that averaging and weighting (it's calculus, man) is saying that your daily usage trajectory has significantly departed from your past use, and they might add a note to your bill and say that your usage is up uncharacteristically higher since say.. June... and that prompts to you consider checking for leaks, or to acknowledge that you planted 5 new trees in May, and have been diligently watering them in.

Ten Amendments, Ten Commandments, and one Golden Rule solve most every problem. Citrus hand-cleaner with Pumice does the rest.

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Lars(wi) Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Orange Level Access Joined: 14 Sep 2009 Location: Permian Basin Points: 7074	Post Options Post Reply Quote Lars(wi) Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: City ‘smart’ meters for water……. Posted: 6 hours 45 minutes ago at 8:53pm
	Anybody have them if you have municipal water? Good, bad, and the ugly about them? Have heard and seen news stories from neighboring cities about billing issues, exorbitant usage fee’s etc.
	I tried to follow the science, but it was not there. I then followed the money, and that’s where I found the science.

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KJCHRIS Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Orange Level Joined: 21 Dec 2015 Location: WC Iowa Points: 882	Post Options Post Reply Quote KJCHRIS Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 4 hours 33 minutes ago at 11:05pm
	Got mine @ house in city about 15 years ago, 2 guys in basement about 1 hour to install no issues, water cost stayed about the same as with older meter. Before city employees (I think 4 total) had to walk near the meters to get the reading. So 2 guys less on city payroll and 2 transferred to helping with street work & a couple less pickups. Our R E C @ farm when updating their "switch makes sense system" went to similar for electric about 7-8 years ago. Now they don't have 2 F T & 1 P T guys in pickups driving around several counties reading meters 5 days a week. Got rid of 3 4x4 pickups & 2+ men. Both systems send useage data at to a central computer.
	AC 200, CAH, AC185D bareback, AC 180D bareback, D17 III, WF. D17 Blackbar grill, NF. D15 SFW. Case 1175 CAH, Bobcat 543B,

steve(ill) Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Orange Level Access Joined: 11 Sep 2009 Location: illinois Points: 80168	Post Options Post Reply Quote steve(ill) Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 4 hours 32 minutes ago at 11:06pm
	we are rural but have "city water"... they use to come by and read the meter every month.. About 10 years ago they put on a "SMART MONITOR" that sends out a signal on what your usage is.. No more Manual Labor........... Rural Electric company did the same thing.
	Like them all, but love the "B"s.

DaveKamp Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Orange Level Access Joined: 12 Apr 2010 Location: LeClaire, Ia Points: 5724	Post Options Post Reply Quote DaveKamp Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 3 hours 7 minutes ago at 12:31am
	The term 'smart meter' is a bit of misnomer... there's nothing of any exceptional intelligence, it's just a meter that has a short-range data transmitter. There's a receiver unit in a vehicle, when they drive down the neighborhood, it gathers up all the meter readings and transmits them to the utility's computer system for billing. It is 'smart' in that it allows a part-time wage-earner to accomplish an entire city read in the time it would have taken 100 walking readers to do a couple neighborhoods. To make things even more 'streamlined', many utility companies have their billing system set up to process based on 'estimation' on their regular billing date, and at the next billing date, they add or subtract from that estimation based on whatever usage volume change occurred at the read date. The way they accomplish this is pretty simple... they have a year or two's worth of readings, and their system computes a 'daily average'. Let's say that your daily average for a given weekday (like a Monday) is 200 gallons, and that's about same per day 'till Friday, when you might use 350, and 500 on Saturday, 400 on Sunday... like you're watering flowers, washing a car, or just taking a few more showers after doing yard work... so the billing system says your meter was at 21843 on Saturday the 1st... and they're billing you through the following 30'th, they say the daily average of all those days would likely put you at so many mondays, tuesdays etc., on the average... and they bill you for that. Now, halfway through the month, they get a reading that says you're slightly LESS by THAT day, than your daily average... so they apply a little math (integration and derivation) to 'weight' the next month's daily averages. By three-four months, with over 2 years' meter records, they'll have that bill down to really-darned-close. UNLESS you have a leak somewhere... a running toilet, or a broken irrigation line in your yard... in which case, the 'smart meter' really isn't about the METERING, it's about the DATA HANDLING... that averaging and weighting (it's calculus, man) is saying that your daily usage trajectory has significantly departed from your past use, and they might add a note to your bill and say that your usage is up uncharacteristically higher since say.. June... and that prompts to you consider checking for leaks, or to acknowledge that you planted 5 new trees in May, and have been diligently watering them in.
	Ten Amendments, Ten Commandments, and one Golden Rule solve most every problem. Citrus hand-cleaner with Pumice does the rest.