Mountain Regional Water customers are receiving notices to let them know their water meters are being replaced. The district two years into the project meant to replace 4,000 water meters in the district.
Replacing the meters will cost the district $1.25 million. Mountain Regional Director Scott Morrison but it is a budgeted cost that did not increase the rates of their customers.
“Water meters typically are rated to last about 10 years.” Morrison explained, “The previous meters reached their end of life, so it offers an opportunity to move to more modern equipment. These new meters offer water usage information through the cellular network. That information is provided on a daily basis. Within those daily reads it includes hourly and, in some cases, sub-hourly usage information. Which just offers a number of benefits over the previous water meter that was read on a monthly basis.”
The new meters offer benefits not only to the district but also to its customers.
“With respect to leaks the customer can log into their water meter, log into their webpage that’s specific to their meter.” Morrison continued, “They can set-up leak alerts where if there was continues usage through their meter for a 24-hour period they would receive either a text message or an email based on their preference to let them know of the leak. We’re also notified of those, so the district can stay on top of those leaks as well. For those customers that want to target say either a specific volume of water consumed in a month or want to target a specific bill amount. They can certainly do that. That’s particularly relevant in the summer when folks are irrigating. They can adjust or modulate how they’re irrigating their property to be able to hit those targets.”
Most of the water meters are outside but customers that do have indoor water meters will be asked to schedule a time to have theirs replaced. If you aren’t one of those customers Morrison says there’s not much you need to do.
“Essentially look for the notice that your meter’s been replaced.” Morrison said, “When you receive that notice we ask customers to go ahead and log into their new meter to have again that visibility and be able to take advantage of these improvements. For those customers who have older homes we’re really hopeful that customers install expansion tanks on their hot water heaters. This is part of plumbing code this is not a Mountain Regional mandate, but it’s just to protect them from over pressuring of their system. It’s not the water meter that’s doing that. As part of the process of installing these meters Mountain Regional is ensuring that there is a backflow prevention device at the meter connection which safeguards our water system. It prevents water from the customers residence from entering into the public water system.”
Morrison says those expansion tanks are recommended not a requirement. He also reports that the replacement has gone well as they are about halfway through.
