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Water and Electric Meters Getting Upgraded

Work has begun on a long-range project to upgrade the town's water and electric meters to help the utility systems save money and operate more efficiently.

The new meters are more accurate and utilize radio signals which are read by equipment mounted in a service vehicle.  Rather than have several Meter Readers walk the entire Town on a revolving, monthly basis a single staff person can drive by all addresses in just a few hours and automaticly log both water and electric usage.

"We want to operate more efficiently," said Customer Service Director Ann Game. "That's pretty much it. These new meters help us do that."

Technicians are going home-to-home, targeting about half the town's electric meters this year and about a quarter of the water meters. The remaining meters will be upgraded in future years as funding permits, she said.

The switch-out requires a service interruption of about 30 minutes or so as technicians remove the old meter and install the new one. The work will be done Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm, except for an occasional Saturday.  The Technician will knock on the door and inform each resident of the short interruption in service prior to initiating the work at that address.

"We regret that residents will be without power for a short time during this process, but the work is necessary to improve our utility system," Game said.

Similar upgrades have been undertaken by several, mostly larger, utility systems across North Carolina in recent years.