Harry K wrote:
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Steve Barker" wrote in message
...
Having lived within 300 miles my whole life, I guess I'm am in fact not
familiar with other places water meters. Every place I've ever lived had
read out directly in gallons.

Same here. I don't understand why some nerd with a pocket protector would
bother to create an arbitrary unit of measurement, other than to justify his
job at the water authority.

Because a 'unit' is a much more useable measure for that much volume.
Much easier to look at a bill and see "oh, I used 3 units this month
instead of the usual 1' rather than seeing the volume in thousands of
gallons.
I agree, it certainly makes no sense to measure in
gallons. In fact, acre-feet is used for large
amounts of water.
OTOH, it makes no sense to call the units "units."
It would be much simpler to use CCF (for 100
cubic feet) as the unit, as apparently do many
water utilities.



Same reason some items are measured/sold by 'hundred weight' or 'tons'
vice pounds.
Hundred weight and tons as well as bushels are
simply long used standards for sales, but they
currently often make no sense. Why would you
measure potatoes in sacks instead of hundred
weight and why would you use bushels instead of
tons for corn? There is an obvious reason for
doing so but it has little meaning to the ordinary
consumer.


Harry K