Posted on Monday, June 4, 2018 by Allan Nielsen
Are you playing hide and seek with your water meters?
Because really, you don't have to
A very large percentage of the water meters installed in the world today are mechanical meters with no other means of reading the volume counter value than to locate the meter, make a physical reading and take note of the same.
This may sound like a straightforward task, especially if the meters are installed outside which makes them physically accessible.
However, the task is made difficult by the fact that many of these meters, even if placed outside and close to a public road, are hidden by plants or shrubs. This means that your meter reading personnel need to play hide and seek with the water meters in order to find them - often resulting in a ”meter not found” or ”meter reading not possible” report.
Such reports of failed meter readings require further action, most often in the form of a call to the customer and then a re-visit to perform the reading, making the reading process more time consuming, complicated and expensive.
Such reports of failed meter readings require further action, most often in the form of a call to the customer and then a re-visit to perform the reading, making the reading process more time consuming, complicated and expensive.
All this can easily be avoided with a simple drive-by reading solution, where the meter reader doesn’t have to worry about the location of the meter or if new vegetation has hidden the meter altogether. He will be able to read all meters from the road without leaving the vehicle, which saves time here and now, but also significantly reduces the number of revisits and reading errors.
Read more about the benefits of smart metering, drive-by solutions and fixed network options here