LINDSEY – The Village of Lindsey will receive a $131,092 loan from the Ohio Water Development Authority to modernize 202 water meters at homes and businesses.
The OWDA noted the village will receive the loan for 20 years at 3.9% interest.
“These will be remote-read meters,” Village Administrator Jerry Neff said.
The new meters will replace old ones from the 1990s. When the project is finished in the spring, the meters can be read remotely from a passing vehicle. “We are losing revenue because (the 1990s) meters are not reading correctly,” Neff said.
Neff said that the installation project starts in April and should wrap up in later May. According to other communities that have upgraded their meters, the village could collect 10%-15% more money for the water being used. The remote-read meters will also reduce the time it takes to read meters, reducing the four-hour monthly task to about 30 minutes.
“It’s been in the works for six to eight months,” Neff said.
The project required more money because the work isn’t limited to replacing water meters.
“We have to dig up 46 meters in the yard,” Neff said. The village has 182 single-family home water meters, and the rest are commercial or used for multi-residential buildings.
Information from the new meters will be transmitted to a computer. The village also looked at a system which would have had constant water readings being taken from equipment fixed to its water tower, but that would have added $30,000 or $40,000 to the project, Neff estimated.
rbrooks@gannett.com
419-334-1059
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Lindsey village approved for new water meters
Reporting by Rebecca Brooks, Fremont News-Messenger / Fremont News-Messenger
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