Colfax contemplates new water meters for $160,000

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  Is it time for Colfax to install new state-of-the-art water meters?

The cost for installing all new water meters would be $160,000 if village employees do the installation themselves, but the savings on labor costs for reading the meters and calculating the water bills, along with increased revenue from more accurate meter readings, would go toward helping the meters pay for themselves.

“We have missed ten to 15 upgrades (on water meters). Some of our meters are from 50 years ago,” said Rand Bates, director of public works, at a meeting of the Colfax Village Board’s public works committee October 5.

“We’re so far behind on this,” Bates added.

Right now, village employees manually read each water meter, write down the numbers and then turn in the numbers to Sheila Riemer, deputy clerk treasurer, who manually calculates the water usage and then prints and mails out the water bills.

Preparing the water bills to send out each quarter takes three full days of work, said Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer.

If a water usage number seems really off, then public works employees go back out and do re-reads, Bates said.

In most cases, when the meters are read again, it turns out that someone transposed a number or wrote down an incorrect number, he said.

Smart meters

New Kamstrup ultrasonic “smart” water meters with automated meter reading would drastically reduce the amount of time and labor for village employees to read the water meters and mail out water bills, said Chet Bente and Jonathan Bradley, representatives for the Dakota Supply Group.

The village currently has 100 newer meters and 500 older meters, Bente said.

Every ten years, the older meters must be removed, tested and repaired, and then reinstalled elsewhere, he said.

The new ultrasonic smart water meters have no moving parts, so they are maintenance free, Bente said.

The new meters start reading water flow almost instantaneously and are read with an Android cell phone or a tablet computer, he said.

Instead of going to each meter and reading the meter manually, village employees would drive up and down the streets, and the cell phone application would automatically read the meters, Bente said.

The application can read meters that are up to 300 feet away, he said.

The computer software for the meters shows 450 days of water usage, so if a village resident complains about the water bill, the usage amounts can be pulled up and examined for any changes, Bente said.

The City of Prescott installed 100 of the smart meters last year and then installed 1,800 of them this year. With the old equipment, reading the water meters in Prescott took seven days. Reading the meters now takes two hours and 40 minutes, Bente said.

The Village of Elmwood also has recently installed 340 of the smart water meters, and whereas it used to take days to read the meters, the time is now down to 35 minutes, he said.

Reading the water meters in Colfax takes three days, and “you have to touch every house,” Bates said.

The meter, the accuracy and the battery are guaranteed for 20 years, Bente noted.

Alarm system

The meter system has an alarm, so it will indicate problems while the meters are being read, Bradley said.

The average water loss in a municipality is 16 percent of the gallons pumped. Water loss can result from a variety of sources, such as leaks in water mains, dripping faucets, or leaking toilets, he said.

Because the smart meters start reading almost instantaneously, the leaks in residences and businesses can be detected right away, Bradley said.

In one instance, the alarm indicated a problem at a house. Public works employees could not find any leaks inside the house, but when they walked around to the backyard, there was an outdoor faucet leaking, Bente said.

The software also registers the temperature of the water, so public works employees can tell where the water is colder in the winter, and if the temperature drops below a certain point, residents in that section of town can be asked to let the water trickle to prevent water mains from freezing, Bradley said.

During the exceptionally cold winter several years ago, Colfax spent more than $20,000 on thawing water mains.

Quarterly

Colfax currently invoices for water usage every quarter, Niggemann said.

Many municipalities with the new smart water meters bill monthly, Bente and Bradley said.

Even if Colfax still wanted to bill quarterly, the meters could be read every month, they said.

Niggemann, along with members of the public works committee — Village Trustees Casey Rihn (chair), Keith Burcham, David Wolff and Village President Scott Gunnufson — thought village residents might appreciate a monthly bill rather than a quarterly bill, although Niggemann pointed out that mailing water bills each month would increase postage costs.

The water meter software would interface with the village’s financial software.

On top of the $160,143 for the residential and commercial water meters, installation would be $37,540.

Bates said public works employees could install the water meters themselves.

“We would not do the whole town at once. We would do it one section at a time,” he said.

Colfax could start with 200 residences in one section, Gunnufson suggested.

Bates and Riemer should go to Elmwood and Prescott to see how the system works and to ask questions about the smart meters and the software, Niggemann said, adding that she could go as well.

Now is a good time to consider replacing water meters so the cost could be added to the budget for 2017, Gunnufson said.

According to information supplied by Bente and Bradley, three year financing for $198,000 would result in an annual payment of $69,448.  Five year financing for $198,000 would amount to an annual payment of $42,815. Seven year financing would end up with an annual payment of $31,649, and the payment for nine year financing would be $25,656.

According to the audit for 2015, the water utility’s operating expense was $175,898, and the operating income was $69,185. The sewer utility’s operating expense was $153,319, and the operating income was $15,853.