Back in the late 1990’s the power company installed new power meters on all the houses in our neighborhood. These kind could be read by someone driving by with a computer. About 5 years later I get a knock on the front door, it’s a couple guys telling me I am in trouble for altering my power meter, I was looking at a big fine. Apparently the meter readings the past 3 months or so had been very low compared to the previous 12 months readings. I went out and watched them check the meter. They found the security device to be intact. They removed the glass part and looked inside the meter. All looked fine. Then one of the guys asked me how my power usage could drop so much. I told him that about 3 months earlier, the my 2 step daughters, their husbands and the 4 kids of one pair had moved out. Also, my then wife and I had split and she was now living in Maryland. It was now just me, a dog and 2 cats living in the house. They put everything back together and left. A few days later I got a call from the power company, I was told to ignore my next bill, a mistake had been made. The bill came a few days later and had an $800 civil assessment for violating their terms and conditions. Yeah, a mistake was made.
My meter is in the garage, and easy to read if i move the trash cans. But it can be read remotely, so I don’t. Actually, i think someone came by to read it before they upgraded the meter.
Nothing concerning Ms Uzi. Mr Fugitive got his heart surgery and did a small amount of time for parole violation. He still lives in the area and seems to be all legal since then (15 years or so). He stops by for supper every now and then.
At the arrest the feds never would tell me where they were staked out. The friend’s house was on a dead end street, not even a turnaround and parking on one side only. There were only a couple of cars on the street. They just laughed and high-fived each other.
Currently on a well, but decades ago the water company sent a card with dials on it and I had to draw on the hands and mail it back. A bill came a few weeks after.
I remember that from a very long time ago. Haven’t seen it in probably 40 years. My water meter is inside a little cupboard in the basement and is read remotely by the city. The electricity meter is outside and I have no idea how it’s read, but I’ve never been asked to provide a reading.
I think that once upon a time, i had to “read” the water meter by drawing dials, too. But that’s a really long time ago.
Electric, water and gas are separate and used to have someone come by and read them once a month. Now it’s all remote. The water company sends me an email when my water usage in a day is much more than typical.
We did that for my parents house in the 70s and maybe into the early 80s. Somewhere along the way the Water Co. put in a new meter with an external pickup or something like that. If I’m not mistaken, for either water or gas, a meter reader would often come into the house to take the reading also.
Wow, they’ve got a lot of nerve! They must read them once in a while, otherwise you could fudge the data and not get caught.
I remember when I was a kid (60s-70s), our natural gas meter was read by a meter man. He would come in the house and just yell, “Meter man!” and then he would go into the basement, read the meter and leave. They had keys that would enable them to go into any house. They would just open the door and come in!
Now when I think of it, how odd!!
Oddly enough, even though we live in an urban area (Chester UK), our house does not have a water meter.
We get charged a flat annual rate, presumably based on average use for the area?
Our gas and water meters are ready remotely by the city, and there is an online portal where the meter readings are available for the last 365 days. The readings are taken every 30 minutes, so if you wanted to you could look and see what time you took a shower in the morning. It can also estimate what your next bill will be. Electric is a non-city utility, and they are upgrading their meters this year.
The meters are not infallible though. One day I logged in and saw that my estimated bill was over $1,000 (it’s usually $75). A quick look at the usage showed that I apparently used 250,000 cubic feet of gas from 9:30 am to 10:00 am one day in August. I use about that much gas in an entire year. I was home at the time, and if I actually used that much gas in 30 minutes there is no way that either my house or myself would be here today. Call the utility office and they said that there was an error somewhere, and that other customers had also called. My bill was around $75.
I don’t remember what I did originally – maybe I read it. But later they (the city) installed a transmitter. I got two notices saying my reading was missing. I think they even came after the first one. They gave up after the second failure and wired up a something that goes from the meter (in my basement near where water comes in) to an outside box. My understanding is to get my reading they take a reader and place it near my outside box (there are no metal contacts on the box)
I have seen a meter reader go to the back of my house (I don’t remember it it was water or electric)
My water bill comes quarterly (also includes trash/recycling) – most of my bill is sewer minimum charge.
Brian
Put a decimal point between the numbers and this is me.