Yorkville installing new water meters in residents’ homes

With the underground aquifer depleting and more expensive Lake Michigan water soon flowing into Yorkville, the city is installing new water meters in residents’ homes.

The new meters will maximize savings by increasing efficiency and providing more accurate readings than the current 20-year old meters in residents’ homes, Yorkville Public Works Director Eric Dhuse said.

“We will be able to provide residents hour-by-hour, accurate readings and even alert them for high water usage to help save them money,” Dhuse said. “It allows us to be more efficient by reducing visits to each home because we can do remote readings. This way, we are able to be less intrusive to homeowners.”

As part of the city project to switch to Lake Michigan water from the underground aquifer, the city is required to reduce non-revenue water loss to less than 10%, according to city documents. This means of all the water flowing into Yorkville, they need to reduce the amount being lost without somebody paying for it.

Besides installing more efficient water meters in households, projects to help nudge the city under that 10% rate include replacing older water mains throughout town to reduce water loss from water main breaks and installing meters on city hydrants to better monitor water loss when the hydrants are flushed, Dhuse said.

“By accounting for every drop and correcting inaccurate meter reads, we will get below the 10% non-revenue water loss rate,” Dhuse said.

Yorkville City Council at its Nov. 27 meeting unanimously approved a $735,092 contract with Core and Main of Belvidere to install the new water meters over the next three to five months. Its services involve the switching out of 1,243 water meters across the city. Another 3,000 new meters already installed are ready to connect to the new system.