City of Seligman finishes replacing water meters for residents
Wayne Persons, maintenance supervisor, changes out the last water meter for the city. In all, 641 meters were replaced in the past six months.
February 11, 2015
Charlea Mills
The City of Seligman installed the last of their new water meters last week. The city bought 641 that were put in over the last six months as a move to improve efficiency, not only with water usage, but also employee time.
The project, which cost just under $93,000, $145 for each meter, was paid for by the water department with cash available, but according to Seligman City Clerk Brian Nichols, the project will have paid for itself over the next two years just in employee expenses alone.
The new meters are radio-read meter, meaning that instead of an employee having to walk up to each meter to read them on a property, they can drive by and read them electronically from the street. What used to take four city employees two and a half days to read water meters will now take one person approximately three hours. However, Nichols emphasized that this wasn’t a move to eliminate someone’s job. Nichols stated, “It’s all about efficiency. We aren’t eliminating a job or downsizing the workforce.” By freeing up that time, city employees can focus on other projects.
The decision to switch to the radio-read meters was not taken lightly. Nichols said, “We had some meters that had been in the ground 25 years, and they needed to be upgraded. We looked at the cost of the meters, the cost to read them, and found that, with the radio-read, they would pay for themselves in two years.” The old way of reading meters cost the city roughly $33,500 a year between the initial reading and follow-ups. However, the new radio-read costs around $1,158.00 per year in labor costs.
Nichols said, “Aside from employee time savings, you can remove errors in recording the meter reads, this eliminates re-reads, and then all it takes is a few clicks and the reads are loaded into our billing software.”
The new meters have a 25-year battery in them and are under warranty and have an estimated lifespan to last for two and a half million gallons, which should be 20 years or more. The only anticipated maintenance on the meters is the replacement of the bottoms of each one every ten years.
Some customers are already enjoying the benefits of the newer meters. Nichols said the city has already had customers coming in asking questions about their water usage and are, in turn, finding leaks in their lines that they weren’t aware of before. In one instance, Nichols said the city was losing 14 gallons of water an hour that wasn’t registering on a 25-year-old meter. Once the new meter was installed, the water was being registered and the customer was able to fix the leak on their end.
Each of the new water meters stores four months of data by the day down to hourly usage. When a customer has an issue with their bill being too high, the city is able to tell them when an unusually high usage was reported down to the hour.
Nichols said, “The meters themselves store 120 days’ worth of gallons per hour readings, and I can print out a chart to the customers that will show them exactly when a leak started or provide them with a peace of mind showing their repair job is complete. I would have been hard to explain to a customer that they simply used the water before this feature.”
The city also replaced 12 of the larger meters on the main lines that will help the make sure what is being billed is matching up on each main line.
The Seligman City Council approved the purchase of the meters in stages through Infinity Meter Company through Harry Cooper Supply in Springfield.
Initially, they approved a starter package of 25 meters, installation, training and equipment in July 2014 for $12,999. A couple months later, they voted to purchase 575 more meters. Finally, in December, they approved the purchase of the final 50 meters, which was delayed because those were different thread sizes.
Nichols has only positive things to say for the system so far, “I will say, the system performs great, it’s very easy to use and control, a few clicks and the routes are loaded, hit the start button and drive. When you are finished, a few clicks of the mouse transfer all of the reads to my billing software, and then it’s done.”
A process that used to take a week to process water bills now is done in a day and is saving the city and their customers both money and time.
Charlea Mills
The City of Seligman installed the last of their new water meters last week. The city bought 641 that were put in over the last six months as a move to improve efficiency, not only with water usage, but also employee time.
The project, which cost just under $93,000, $145 for each meter, was paid for by the water department with cash available, but according to Seligman City Clerk Brian Nichols, the project will have paid for itself over the next two years just in employee expenses alone.
The new meters are radio-read meter, meaning that instead of an employee having to walk up to each meter to read them on a property, they can drive by and read them electronically from the street. What used to take four city employees two and a half days to read water meters will now take one person approximately three hours. However, Nichols emphasized that this wasn’t a move to eliminate someone’s job. Nichols stated, “It’s all about efficiency. We aren’t eliminating a job or downsizing the workforce.” By freeing up that time, city employees can focus on other projects.
The decision to switch to the radio-read meters was not taken lightly. Nichols said, “We had some meters that had been in the ground 25 years, and they needed to be upgraded. We looked at the cost of the meters, the cost to read them, and found that, with the radio-read, they would pay for themselves in two years.” The old way of reading meters cost the city roughly $33,500 a year between the initial reading and follow-ups. However, the new radio-read costs around $1,158.00 per year in labor costs.
Nichols said, “Aside from employee time savings, you can remove errors in recording the meter reads, this eliminates re-reads, and then all it takes is a few clicks and the reads are loaded into our billing software.”
The new meters have a 25-year battery in them and are under warranty and have an estimated lifespan to last for two and a half million gallons, which should be 20 years or more. The only anticipated maintenance on the meters is the replacement of the bottoms of each one every ten years.
Some customers are already enjoying the benefits of the newer meters. Nichols said the city has already had customers coming in asking questions about their water usage and are, in turn, finding leaks in their lines that they weren’t aware of before. In one instance, Nichols said the city was losing 14 gallons of water an hour that wasn’t registering on a 25-year-old meter. Once the new meter was installed, the water was being registered and the customer was able to fix the leak on their end.
Each of the new water meters stores four months of data by the day down to hourly usage. When a customer has an issue with their bill being too high, the city is able to tell them when an unusually high usage was reported down to the hour.
Nichols said, “The meters themselves store 120 days’ worth of gallons per hour readings, and I can print out a chart to the customers that will show them exactly when a leak started or provide them with a peace of mind showing their repair job is complete. I would have been hard to explain to a customer that they simply used the water before this feature.”
The city also replaced 12 of the larger meters on the main lines that will help the make sure what is being billed is matching up on each main line.
The Seligman City Council approved the purchase of the meters in stages through Infinity Meter Company through Harry Cooper Supply in Springfield.
Initially, they approved a starter package of 25 meters, installation, training and equipment in July 2014 for $12,999. A couple months later, they voted to purchase 575 more meters. Finally, in December, they approved the purchase of the final 50 meters, which was delayed because those were different thread sizes.
Nichols has only positive things to say for the system so far, “I will say, the system performs great, it’s very easy to use and control, a few clicks and the routes are loaded, hit the start button and drive. When you are finished, a few clicks of the mouse transfer all of the reads to my billing software, and then it’s done.”
A process that used to take a week to process water bills now is done in a day and is saving the city and their customers both money and time.