City contractor helping with meter reading

While usage information for most water and electric meters can be read with the utility’s automated system, in some cases, meters must be read manually with a technician in the field. The City has hired Putt Bro’s Meter and Hydrant to provide contract technicians to assist City meter readers when manual meter reads are needed.

The number of meters that must be read manually, or estimated based on past usage, was about 2,700 meters in November on a system with about 65,000 meters.

Water metering components fail over time as they age. City of Georgetown experiences about 100 – 150 new module failures a month, which is similar to other water utilities. Supply chain shortages have impacted our ability to replace these failed components on a timely basis and thus manual meter usage reads are needed.

Customers may see a Putt Bro’s employee in their neighborhood reading meters, especially for City water customers in areas west and north of Georgetown. Putt Bro’s technicians wear vests and have vehicles indicating they are City of Georgetown contractors.

“Adding contract staff to our Customer Service meter reading team allows us to get monthly meter reads for more of our customers and reduce the need to use estimates,” Customer Care Director Leticia Zavala said.

For more information about City utilities and customer accounts, go to gus.georgetown.org.