Hamlet Council Considers Water Meter Upgrades

 

The Town of Hamlet is looking to keep better track of its water.

Scott Dunlap with Utility Supply Company discussed a new water meter system with the town council Wednesday. “To automate the system, we would be looking at a couple of different items here,” he said. “That would be the next step to go from a touch read system is to go to a radio read system. It’s very easy to do with what you guys currently have in the ground.”

With the new technology, the meters can be read wirelessly with a hand-held device, which can then be synchronized with the town’s billing software. Dunlap estimated that if all the town’s meters were converted to the new system, the task of meter-reading could go from taking a day-and-a-half to as little as 15 minutes.

Not only do the meters keep track of how much water’s been used, but also when. Dunlap said town employees can then access that information and view it on a smartphone app. “Here’s 96 days of your hourly reads,” he told council members. “We can zoom in to a very specific day, let’s say Monday February 13. This is a 24-hour graph of all of your data, of hourly reads. And it tells you down to the hundredth of a gallon, so these are extremely accurate.”

Council member Brian Earnest pointed out that many of the town’s current meters are not very accurate. “When we went out and had the street department just go out and do an estimate of how many meters we have right now that are faulty, it was it was in the 50s of a 300 system – 300 meters and you got 50 that are not working,” he said. “I mean, that’s a heavy dose that you’re just estimating every single month.”

Council President Dave Kesvormas added that the meter upgrades are just one of a few steps being taken to prevent water loss. For example, the fire department is being encouraged to keep track of how much water it’s using, when possible. “We’ve got all kinds of other things that are out there that I think are issues,” he said. “We have the grass watering rate during the summer months, which at some point, I think maybe we need to get rid of it and just go to a straight rate across the board. That’s kind of the goal is to actually charge people for what they actually use, instead of it being ‘Well, we’re going to guesstimate because we like you,’ and then hammer the next guy whose meter’s being read.”

The cost to replace all of Hamlet’s meters with ones with the wireless technology was estimated at just over $76,000 in January. However, some current meters could be retrofit at a lower cost, and other meters could be changed on an as-needed basis. The next step will be to determine how many meters need to be upgraded.