Rather than waiting around for a pair of workers to check their water meters, about 4,000 businesses in Prince George and Montgomery counties will receive new automatic meter reading units.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which serves more than 1.6 million units in the two Maryland counties, is unrolling phase one of a program that the company said will lessen the inconvenience for customers.
Tom Kelly, strategic coordinator of the program, said the new equipment, called automatic meter reading units, makes it possible for a single WSSC employee to drive by a building and capture a signal to get a reading on the company’s water usage levels.
“So, instead of sending out a two-person crew in a truck with a pump, blower and a host of other equipment, we’ll have one person with a laptop checking water meters,” Kelly said.
The implication is that business workers won’t even have to be around for WSSC monthly checks and maintenance. And their bills will be more accurate as well, according to Dawn Forsythe, the company’s community outreach manager.
She said in inclement weather and in situations where meter readers would have to climb into confined spaces and tunnels, WSSC would simply send estimated bills that could be slightly off the true amount. Not the case with the more advanced signal-activated reading units.
Kelly said the AMRs also have the capacity to do datalogging, which stores readings and keeps track of patterns.
“If a customer is surprised by a bill, you can go back and look at it and analyze whether there’s a water break or leak,” he said.
Phase one is expected to finish by the summer.
