Gas company note.

[kenmac]

The electric an gas companies will use estimates to save on labor. Usually they will read every two months if your meter is outside (and estimate on the other months)


Here ,( or my gas utility anyway) isn't allowed by law to do that. We are required to read every month unless, the meter is inside a fence ,dogs ets,. When this is the case, we will estimate until the home owner gives us access to the meter or we can relocate the meter so it can be read.

 

[Bird]

Yep, Joe, it varies with your area. When I was doing gas leakage surveys, up on the Pennsylvania/NewYork border, quite a lot of their gas meters were still inside the basements of the homes. A number of people had left house keys with the gas company so they could get in to read the meter if the residents weren't home. And, as you mentioned, on those to which the gas company did not have keys, if no one was home, they left a tag on the door for the resident to read their own meter and return the card. And in some cases, where the meter was actually inside, a wire was run outside and the meter reading was shown on a small display on an outside wall.

When I lived out in the country, the electric company read "commercial" meters, but residential meters were read by the residents. The electric company was supposed to check all the meters twice a year, but in fact, didn't get around to doing it even once a year.

And now for at least 14 years, and probably a lot longer, the equipment is available for gas, electric, and water meters to transmit the readings to a remote receiver. At the present time, a meter reader, on foot with his notebook and pen, walks our neighborhood reading the electric meters, but there's one of those transmitters attached to the lid on the water meter compartment, so it's never opened. And our neighborhood has no gas; just a very few people have propane tanks in their yards, but it's at least 99% total electric.

 

[kenmac]

Bird, we have several thousand of those devices that transmit readings to a truck that drives down the street & picks up the signal . It's amazing to see this operate. it will read hundreds of meters just driving down the street. It would take a person walking months to read ,it only takes this truck a few hours

 

[Bird]

Ken, I don't know anything the cost of installing that equipment but I'm actually surprised that all the gas, electric, and water meters are not set up to either transmit to the truck driving down the street, or to transmit back to the main office without needing the truck. I think it's coming; just a matter of when.

 

[kenmac]

There is still a good amount of maintance to keep the system up & running . The electronic devices that we install on the meters are always giving problems with being out in the elements. In time, these problems will be worked out. It is still good to have that meter reader comming around each month as they do notice any gas leaks that may have occured on the meter set ie, corrosion, leaking regulators, meters,etc, & can report them b-4 they become serious problems

 

[ultrarunner]

Pacific Gas and Electric had a campaign to replace a particular style of gas meter installed in the late 50's prone to have problems. I watched the tech replace the meter at my Grand Parents house when no one was home.

The tech carried had a small tank of natural gas that he connected to the hard piped "T" on the customer's side of the meter, then he would turn off both quarter turn valves, replace the meter with a new one, open the quarter turn valves, check for leaks and then quickly disconnect his temporary tank. It worked pretty slick and almost no gas was lost to atmosphere.

He said using this technique save PG&E money because it saved time relighting numerous pilots and avoided scheduling conflicts.

 

[thcri]

If your on propane I don't know if anyone would care. Your gas isn't metered.

Ken that is not so much true. We have many rural developements around here that the LP is piped and metered to individual houses with large LP tanks sitting at one end of the developement. This way there is no tanks on each individual lot and you meet some local codes about tanks being certain distances from buildings.


murph

 

[kenmac]

I wouldn't want to get into one of those lines as propane is alot more dangerous than N.G. (You know alot heaver than N.G.) Folkes get into our N.G. lines all the time. A while back a guy from a cable co. was on a $120,000 trencher ( big one) hit a gas line with about 300 psi on it that wasn't marked. Toasted that trencher. The operator got off ok but, was shaken