BELFAST WATER DISTRICT
Radio Read Water Meters

The Belfast Water District has changed old water meters in the system with new radio read type meters. There was no charge to the customer to have the meter changed. These new meters were needed for a number of reasons. Many meters in the system were at or beyond the recommended usable life of a water meter. The new meters are NSF 61 compliant. This is a Federal regulation that governs the amount of lead that can be in the brass bodies of the meters. The District is getting a lot more information from the new meters that will help the customers with such problems as high water use and undetected leaks inside their house resulting in severe damage in some extreme cases. The radio read meters are read remotely driving through the service areas. Those readings are then electronically uploaded to the billing system to produce the bills. This eliminates handwritten, paper records, reduces the amount of time and expense to get the meter readings and will be safer for the crew. A third of the water meters are read and billed in the system each month, a process that took 70-80 man-hours a month. Now that all the meters in the system are replaced, the time has reduced to 8 hours, 1 crew member. A total of approximately 2,000 water meters were replaced throughout the entire system from 2012 - 2015, a 3 to 4 year process that replaced or upgraded all of the 1950 meters in the system. The Water District crew did all the installations by going door to door and replacing the meters in homes and businesses. The average time to replace a meter was about 20-30 minutes. Should you have any questions, please contact the Belfast Water District at 207-338-1200 between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Or you can e-mail questions by going to the Contact tab on the District’s website.

CUSTOMER SAFETY CONCERNS LETTER