Electric meters record in units called "kilowatts". One kilowatt-hour (kWh) is 1,000 watts of electricity consumed for a period of one hour. In other words, 1kWh is equivalent to ten 100W light bulbs operating for one hour.
Burlington Hydro has both electric mechanical and digital smart meters.
Reading Your Smart Meter
Your smart meter continually cycles through two or three different screens. Only the six-digit kWh screen is required to read your meter.
This screen below is not for reporting. It is a Measurement Canada requirement called a Segment Test.
The screen below is the one to use for reporting your meter reading. It is the only screen with six digits, without letters or decimal points.
You may read this number to our automated meter reading message system at 905-336-4383. If you are entering your meter reading online, input one number per box. The number on the furthest left (0) goes into the leftmost box on the form, and so on.
To submit your smart meter reading, Click here.
You may also see this screen below. This screen is not for reporting. It contains network registration information and will appear once the meter has registered to the Local Network.
Reading Your Electric Mechanical Meter
Reading the meter is quite easy once you know how. From the illustration you can see that some of the pointers turn clockwise while others turn counterclockwise. The right most dial is the least significant. Counting ones, the dial completes 10 rotations before the second dial moves to one.
For the purposes of reading your meter and submitting the reading to Burlington Hydro, read and record the numbers from left to right. When the pointer or indicator is between two numbers, the lower value represents the correct reading.
From the illustration above you will find that the meter has five dials and reads 83406.
Burlington Hydro typically reads the meters every other month. To determine the consumption or electrical usage, the previous reading is subtracted from the present reading.
If your meter is located on the exterior of your house, it is possible that you may never see our meter readers. If your meter is inside and our meter reader comes by when you are not at home, you will find a meter card in your mailbox.
We ask that you fill it out and call our automated meter reading message system at 905-336-4383. You may also submit the reading using our web form.
Click here.
