Remember last summer when village employees replaced the water meter in your lawn?
The project involved 1,450 meters, each containing a radio transmitter that sends water usage by household to the village for monthly billing purposes. That project took all summer to complete.
This fall, after discovering some glitches in about 277 of the radio transmitters, Sensus, the company serving the contract announced that it will replace all 1,450 radio devises in the meters at no cost to the village, according to Jesse Blackburn, village administrator.
The village paid approximately $400,000 for the meter project last summer as the cost about $140 each.
Blackburn estimates that the replacement to Sensus will cost that company around $200,000.
“We began to realize there were some issues with the meters in the fall. Oddly, they appears in groups of nine in several neighborhoods," said Blackburn.
“We contacted Sensus and they told us that there are nine meters to a box when delivered, which explained the issue with nine at a time."
The result is that the company told the village it will replace all the radio transmitters using its own employees to do the switchover. The replacement project should begin sometime next week.
As the meters are replaced, Bryan Lloyd, assistant village administrator, said that there will be no disruption in household water ervices during this transition.
The meters have an estimated 20-year life expectancy and are totally under warranty.
