What you’ll need:
A piece of paper and a pencil
- A rag or piece of paper towel
- Gardening gloves
- Something to kneel on like a towel or old pillow
- Your reading glasses (or computer glasses)
How to take a reading:
- Go out to your meter register and open the top. First, open the little door. Put on your glove, then put your hand inside and pull up to remove the large cover.
- Remove the dirt and spider webs that have accumulated on the dial so you can read it.
- Write down the numbers, just like you are copying the mileage on your car’s odometer. There are usually six numbers. Don’t worry about the round dial with the pointer; just record the “odometer” reading. Replace the cover.
- Get your previous month’s reading from www.lamisionwaterco.org website.
- Go to Meter Readings tab and select the latest reading (the one at the top of the list). Open the file by clicking on the latest month.
- Scroll down the list and find the name of the street where you live.
- Find your own name, and write down the latest reading from the column at the far right where the latest month appears. The “odometer” reading will be the-same-as, or lower than the one you just copied off the meter outside. To get it, you will need to move the information over using the slide bar at the bottom of the page. Do not use “Usage 31 Days” or “Average Daily Usage”. Use the latest full month reading (six digits long).
- Subtract the numbers in item 4 (from the website) from the numbers in item 3 that you just wrote down from your meter. This is how much water in gallons that you have used so far this month. Remember that the monthly allotment varies slightly based on the number of “billing days” in the month, but it is usually 8,680 gallons. Consequently:
- If you’re halfway through the month, and you’ve used 4,000 gallons or less, you will probably not over-use by the end of the month.
- But if the reading is over 5,000, you will need to conserve to avoid going over at month end.