Water Meters

Important Winter Tips for Residents

• Turn your water off using the stop valve in front of your water meter when you leave your house for more than 24 hours. Also, drain your pipes and turn off your water heater. This limits the water damage possible if your house loses heat (e.g. power outage) and the pipes freeze.
• If you have an analog meter, maintain a clear path to the water meter remote box on the exterior wall at your property. This helps ensure your meter can be read and your bill is calculated using your actual consumption.

How Richmond Hill Reads Your Water Meter

In 2012, Richmond Hill established a Water Meter Replacement Program which consisted of the replacement and installation of new water meters to better serve our residents and to upgrade our technology. The new water meters allow City staff to investigate unusual water usage, such as continuous water flow and reverse flow, as well as communicate possible leaks and the ability to detect high water loss more effectively.

As part of the Water Meter Replacement Program, Richmond Hill has also begun to install data collectors located strategically throughout the City so that meter readings can be taken remotely which will eliminate the need for City staff to walk across or drive by your property to read the water meter. This is referred to as an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Network. Richmond Hill will continue to add more data collectors across the City to further improve service for residents.

Meter reading is the only tool used to measure the quantity of water supplied to a property and to calculate a water and wastewater bill. Water meter technology is quite simple but extremely reliable. That's why the municipality relies on it as the sole billing method. Richmond Hill uses positive displacement flow meters, which means the water flow mechanically displaces components in the meter to measure the water. In a rare instance when a water meter malfunctions, it under-registers or stops registering water flow completely.

Reading the Odometer Style Water Meter

As water passes through the water meter chamber the red arm moves clockwise. Each digit the red arm passes represents 0.1 litres of water passing through the meter. Once the arm makes a complete rotation, the last digit on the right will change accordingly (for example, the last digit will change from a 2 to a 3). If all water is turned off at your property, the red arm will remain completely still. If the red arm is moving, this means water is passing through the water meter. 

Reading the LCD Style Water Meters

To activate the consumption screen on the water meter, you must point a flashlight directly at the light sensor. For meter "A", point the flashlight at the circle beside the image of the flashlight to activate the screen. For meter "B", continually point the flashlight at the sensor bar at the top to activate the screen. Once activated, the screen will show numbers, a leak indicator (tap icon on top left) and flow indicator (arrows on top right).

Symbols on the LCD Style Water Meters

LEAK INDICATOR: If the image of the tap is not on the screen there are no leaks, flashing means there is a possibility of a leak and if it is a steady image, there is a high probability that there is a leak somewhere at the property.

FLOW INDICATOR: If the image with the arrows is displayed, that means that water is currently passing through the water meter. Typically you want the arrow to be pointing to the right to represent the flow of water is passing through the meter and to your property.

CONSUMPTION DIGITS: Currently Richmond Hill only uses the first six digits (ie. starting from the left) of the screen for meter reading. The chart below demonstrates what each column of numbers represents in litres.

To convert your reading to litres, take your meter reading and multiply by 1000.

Ex. Meter display shows 24.5000, therefore 24.5000 x 1000 = 24,500 litres.