Water Meter Upgrade Project
Water meter upgrades will begin in February 2024
Water meters in all homes and businesses will be updated by 2026
Book your appointment
Booking instructions will be located on your mailed Appointment Notice.
You cannot book your upgrade appointment until you are notified that KTI Utility Services technicians are in your area.
We are excited to announce a major upgrade to the water meter system in the City of Brantford! As part of our commitment to providing the best services to our customers, we are implementing a mandatory Water Meter Upgrade Project.
Upgrade benefits
This upgrade will offer many benefits, including:
| Enhance water usage monitoring |
| Customers can now monitor their water usage hourly to detect leaks or high usage. |
| Reduce costs |
| Identifying leaks or high usage gives you an opportunity for timely maintenance of your plumbing fixtures. |
| More efficient billing |
| Improved billing accuracy will reduce the need for estimated billing, which will give you more accurate and useful information. |
| Enhance water distribution system management |
| Improved accuracy of water consumption data and detection of backflow issues will lead to more efficient operation and maintenance of our water distribution system. |
| Reduce water loss |
| Monitoring water usage patterns will help identify water theft, tampering and leaks. |
| Reduce the impact of climate change |
| Additionally, the new system aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by eliminating the need to drive vehicles to each property for monthly manual meter reading and reduce energy usage by reducing water loss and modifying pumping strategy based on customer demand patterns. |
Background
The City maintains more than 35,000 water meters located in various residential, industrial, commercial and institutional properties. At each property, there is typically a touchpad connected to the water meter for manual meter reading. The touchpad is generally located on the outside of a building, often near the electrical meter.
Once a month, a meter reader visits each property to collect a reading from the touchpad using a handheld device. Water meter readings are used by the City to calculate water and sewer usage.
The City of Brantford is transitioning from manual water meter reading to an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. AMI is an integrated system of water meters, low-power radio frequency transmitters, data collectors and software that enables automatic collection of water meter readings. AMI technology for water is similar to electricity metering technology, which has been in place in Brantford since 2010.
Once completed, the AMI system will provide Brantford water customers access to their hourly water usage, billing, alerts and notifications through the City’s web portal.
How AMI technology works:
- The water meter measures water usage and data is stored in the meter register
- The radio transmitter encrypts data from the register and sends it wirelessly to a network of data collectors 6 times per day
- The new transmitter will be powered for less than 6 seconds per day and no personal information is transmitted
- The data collectors relay the data to the City’s host software, and the City uses the data to create utility bills
- The water usage information is made available to customers through the City’s online customer portal
- There will be no changes to how or when you receive your utility bill
Radio frequency standards and licensing
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) has approved and licensed the data collector units installed in Brantford, which fully comply with ISED standards and guidelines for environmental exposure to radio frequency. The equipment also meets standards set by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The equipment must continue to comply with these limits at all times to maintain the ISED license.
In addition, the radio transmitter equipment that will be attached to the outside of customers’ buildings meets Health Canada's Safety Code 6, which sets limits for safe human exposure to radio frequency energy. Health Canada closely monitors new research on radio frequency and revises its recommendations as needed to protect residents. It also ensures exposure limits are consistent with science-based limits used in other parts of the world, such as the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The new water meters do not contain a radio transmitter device. A separate radio transmitter will be connected to the water meter by copper wire and typically attached to the outside of the building. This same radio transmitter technology has been installed in hydro (electric) meters in the City of Brantford since 2010. The levels of radio frequency emitted by the radio transmitter technology are lower than those of common household devices, such as Wi-Fi routers, baby monitors and 3G cell phones; the new transmitter has approximately 1/10th the transmission power of a cell phone.
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