Want to understand more about how to read your gas and electricity meters correctly? Then, read on.
Technically speaking, today’s degree of heating and cooling is a simple measure of the influence of weather on your energy needs: using average temperatures every day, every degree Fahrenheit below 65 ° F is calculated as one degree warming day, and every degree Fahrenheit above 65 ° F is calculated as one day degree of cooling. The use of your heating and cooling must be proportional to the number of days of degree of heating and cooling for the intended period of time.
You can also contact your local utility company for more information about reading your meter. If the monthly information is good enough, your electricity bill can have all the information you need. Make sure the bills are based on actual meter readings, not estimated, and note when the meter is read, because sometimes the time between meter readings can be variable. Contact your local utility if you are unsure about this.
Electricity meter
The basic unit of measure for electric power is watts. A thousand watts is called a kilowatt. If you use a thousand watts of power in one hour, you have used kilowatt-hours (kWh). Your electricity utility charges you with kWh.
A standard electric power meter is a device such as an electrically driven clock that moves past it. When the house draws current from the power line, a small set of gears in the meter moves. The number of turns is recorded by a button that you can see at the front of the meter. The rotation speed will depend on the level of current drawn – the greater the power consumed at one time, the quicker the gear will spin.
When reading the electricity meter, read and write the numbers as shown in the buttons from right to left. When the pointer is directly on the number, look at the dial positioned the right. If you have gone past zero, use the next higher number. If it hasn’t passed zero, use a lower number. Record the numbers shown by writing the dial value to your extreme right first and the rest when you come to them. When the dial hand comes between two numbers, always note down the lower one.
Natural Gas Meters
The gas that comes into our homes is usually measured by cubic feet, and you are charged by a calculation of per thousand cubic feet (MCF) or by hundred cubic feet (CCF). You can sometimes also see ‘therm’ written on your bill and this is almost the same as CCF. To calculate the amount of electricity or gas used, the supplier installs a meter at the point where the electricity or gas enters the property and distributes.
A gas meter is driven by the power of the gas that moves inside the pipe, and also changes faster with increasing flow. Every time a button with a lower value produces one full turn, the pointer on the next higher value button moves forward one digit.
When reading the gas meter, read and write the numbers as shown on the button from left to right (the opposite of the electric meter). It is important to note that in both types of meters, adjacent hands rotate in opposite directions to each other.
