A
familiar question asked by many Aussie householders whilst performing
their DIY
HOME ELECTRICITY AUDIT is, “How do I read my mechanical type
electricity meter?”
Let
us now make the exercise of recording this electricity meter's data, easy
for you.
Looking
at the electricity meter illustrated, you will notice there are five
clockwork dials. The electricity meter has the ability to read up to
99999 kilowatt hours of electricity, before going around the clock
again. The kilowatt hours are stated as kWh on your bill and are also known
as units of electricity.
The
first dial on the left records these units in the ten thousandths, the next
dial recording one thousandths and so on, down to 1 kilowatt or unit
of electricity.
Starting
from the left-hand dial (10,000), record the numbers from left to
right.
Whenever
a dial points between numbers, always record the lowest number.
On
the electricity meter shown here, you should be seeing a reading of
39803 kilowatt hours. This is your total electricity usage to date. Your electricity bill will
show the previous meter reading and the last reading. The difference
being your new electricity usage and costs, stated on the bill.
There
is an art to reading these mechanical electricity meters. And it is
easy to be confused and take an incorrect reading. The secret to this
confusion, is to always refer to the dial to the right of the one
your reading.
So where the first dial in our example,
reports what looks like the number 4, this is NOT correct! The correct reading
is a 3, as the dial is between numbers, even though this is
hard to see. Remember we are recording the lowest number. To see the
dial is between numbers, can be proven by checking the second dial
[1000]. This dial has not quite reached a full revolution. It has
passed 9, but not fully reached 0. When it passes 0, only then will it
mean the first dial [10000] is at a true count of 4. So to make a
correct reading 100% of the time, always check the lesser dial's
readings. Take a look again until you can see 39803 kilowatt hours.
Not
all electricity meter displays, look like the above example. With some
meters, the placement of numbers in each dial, may run in the
opposite direction. And not all meters have the number of kWh stated
on the dials, as was the case in our example. We added the numbers so
as to explain how to read the meter.
