

Reading Your Electric Meter


Reading your electric meter is a good way to know how much you are spending on electricity. Electricity is measured by kilowatt-hours. For example, a 100 watt light bulb burning for 10 hours uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity. Electric meters keep track of how many kilowatt-hours you have used.



The Digital Meter


Reading a digital meter is easy. All you have to do is read the meter like the mileage odometer in your car. Every time the number increases, that's another kilowatt-hour used.


4 6 3 7 2


The Reading is 46,372



The Dial Meter


Reading a dial meter can be a little difficult. There are five dials numbered 0 through 9, with 0 at the top. On some of the dials, the numbers go around the face clockwise, on others the numbers go counterclockwise. The hands of the dials move in the same direction as the counting order of the numbers.


To read the meter, write down the number that each hand has just passed. Start with the dial on the far left and proceed to the right. If the hand is directly on a number, look at the dial to its immediate right. If that hand has passed zero, write down the number that the left hand is pointing to. If the hand on the right has not passed zero, write down the number that the left hand has just passed.




Once you know how to read your meter, it's easy to figure out how much electricity you've used since your last electric bill. Look at last month's bill and find the reading recorded by CUB. Then, subtract the number you just read off your meter from last month's reading. This gives you the total number of kilowatt-hours you've used since your last reading.


Copyright © Clinton Utilities Board, 2014