On 5/16/2012 2:23 PM, micky wrote:
On Wed, 16 May 2012 07:42:10 -0400, Jim
wrote:

wrote:

-snip-

I know maths is hard, but let's see if we can figure this out:

Let's assume a manual meter-read can read, oh, one meter every three
minutes.

Maybe in an apartment building basement he can do that.

Not in my neck of the woods he can't-- and I'm just in the burbs. In
rural areas he might drive 5 minutes between meters.

I live in a townhouse, and even here I think 3 minutes is unlikely,
even wiithout goofing off. At my house he'd have to move things out
of his way, garbage cans, etc, then squeeze past the motorcycle (1 or
2 minutes) then remove the old one (1 minute) and put in the new one
(1 minute) , then go back to the truck to get another meter (2
minutes, 3 if has to unlock/lock the truck) then go to the next house
1 minute. And he will probably relax for 30 seconds between meters.

So I think we're talking 6 to 9 minutes/meter. Not much more for
single family houses in small to modertate sized lots, except he has
longer to walk to the truck and has to move it more often.


At $20/hr, all things considered, it costs the power company about $1/month
to read your meter.

$20/hr? I'll bet it is closer to $100 "all things considered" --
oh, and don't forget the other $100 for the truck he's driving.


A "smart" meter costs about $200 and about $40 worth of labor to install it.

So, then, for all that, the power company will recoup the expense for buying
and installing the meter in 240 months, about 20 years.

Obviously the power company can't make economic sense with this scenario. I
guess that's why they're charging me a few bucks per month for this shiny
new meter.

There are a ton of 'hidden costs' buried in my electric bill-- but the
meter isn't one of them.


Aside:
The power distribution company DID come out and test the pole in my backyard
recently. They dug an access hole about 18" deep around it and bored out a
1/2" plug of wood. I don't know what they did with the plug - maybe sent it
to a lab for testing - but they did nail an aluminum plate about the size of
a fifty-cent piece to the pole with the test date on it.
-snip-
Never heard of that one. I'll bet in NY, some guy would come out and
eyeball it from the street and tell you to replace it.

Jim


i live in a town of 32 square miles with about 2600 residences of all
kinds (houses, ranches, apartments, businesses). it used to take about 8
days by a few people to read all the water meters manually. the town
replaced them all with remote read meters (radio based), and it can be
done in about 1 day by 1 person just by driving down the street.

most of the remote read electric meters being discussed here are
readable without ANY labor costs, as they can be polled from the utility
computers directly.