Webster has remote water meter readers

Remote radio reading devices being installed on water meters will reduce the time it takes to read the more than 4,600 town meters from as much as two months to a little over two days.

“This is really going to cut down on time, and at some point we will be able to take readings quarterly instead of semiannually, so customers won’t be paying such big bills,” Water Superintendent David R. Lavallee said.

Currently, department employees must plug reading devices into each water meter, a job that takes four employees three to four weeks to complete townwide. Because readings are done twice a year, four employees spend a total of six to eight weeks each year reading meters.

The new device registers meter readings from a distance and allows one employee to drive down streets and collect as many as 1,000 readings an hour in some of the more densely populated areas of town.

It will take a little over a day to read all the town’s meters, Mr. Lavallee estimated.

Installation began this spring and about 1,800 devices have been installed, according to Mr. Lavallee.

The readers cost about $400,000 and are made by Neptune, the same company that made the water meters the town installed about 10 years ago.

Mr. Lavellee said estimates to install the devices ranged from $500,000 to $750,000, so Water Department employees are doing the work.

“It’s really not complicated,” he said. “Mostly it’s just taking the old (reader) box off and wiring it up.”

He said the automated reader “can’t get confused. Each meter has its own identification number. And if it doesn’t pick up a meter for some reason, it will list those it missed.”