WINCHESTER — The manhours needed to take meter readings in Winchester soon will decrease, after city officials approved the purchase of a new water meter system and an update to the gas meters.
The city council approved the purchase of new meters and remote transmitters for the city’s water system, Mayor Rex McIntire said.
“This will be a huge time saver for our department, so we’ll save money and they are more accurate,” McIntire said.
The city now uses a manual meter reader system that is becoming outdated and equipment that is beginning to fail.
The new system will allow a more remote approach. While the person collecting the data still will have to travel the route, they will not have to physically read the meter. Handsets will work with a receiver on the meters to collect the data once the handsets are within a certain radius of the meters.
About half of the meters now in town are compatible with the receivers. The meters that are not compatible — around 470 — will be replaced.
The new system will cut the hours needed to collect water usage data, McIntire said. It now takes three or four employees several days to collect the data as they travel each route, visually collect the meter information and manually calculate the usage.
“Right now they have to visually read them,” McIntire said. “They are estimating that the data will be able to be collected in half a day with the new system.”
The cost for the new system will be about $320,000, or about $4,000 a month. The city now pays more than $3,000 in labor costs each month.
“The savings in labor alone will almost pay for the new meters,” McIntire said. “For just a little bit more, we’ll get a better system.”
While an installation date has not been set, the goal is to have the meters and transmitters for both the water and gas meters installed by this fall, McIntire said.
City employees will exchange the outdated meters before the new system is installed.
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Winchester approves new water meter system to save time, money - Jacksonville Journal-Courier
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