NORTH RIDGEVILLE — The city is about to install high-tech water meters that will alert residents to leaks before they rack up weeks of big water bills.

North Ridgeville is spending nearly half a million dollars to install the system and is the first city in Lorain County to have the latest water meter reading technology.

Currently, if a home develops a water leak, the residents won’t know until getting next month’s water bill, Mayor David Gillock said. By then, they’ve already been charged another three weeks or so on top of the bill they already received.

The new meters will be wirelessly connected to a computer at City Hall.

“This system will have alarms on it, so if someone’s water usage suddenly shoots up, we can contact them,” Gillock said. “From that standpoint, it’s a great benefit.”

And instead of needing meter readers to drive around, wasting all of that high-priced gas, the meters will send the water usage readings to City Hall four to six times a day.

City workers no longer will have to go read the meters. If residents move, they won’t need a final reading, since it’s already in the computer.

About 10 years ago, the city replaced meters in North Ridgeville with ones that had batteries in them. The meters, which most cities in Lorain County are just now installing, allowed water department workers to drive down the road and take readings instead of walking door to door.

The batteries were expected to last six to eight years but are just now beginning to die and need replaced.

So the city is replacing the old system with a new one that has batteries projected to last 20 years.

“The meters needed to be updated anyway, so that’s the way we’re doing it,” Gillock said.

The new meters should start being installed later this summer. Right now, the city employs three part-time meter readers and will likely retain one and try to assimilate the other two workers elsewhere in the city, Gillock said.

Oberlin is in the process of converting to the drive-by system that North Ridgeville is doing away with. Oberlin’s electric department already has done so, and the city is about one-third done with the water meter change, Oberlin Public Works Director Jeff Bauman said. The project is still two to three years away from completion.

Sheffield Lake is in a similar situation as it continues to switch from the manual “touch reads” to the newer system.

“It’s been a three-year process, and it hasn’t gotten rid of (the old meters) yet,” said Bill Gardner, Sheffield Lake director of services.

Contact Christina Jolliffe at 329-7156 or cjolliffe@chroniclet.com.

 

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