Read your gas meter

About your gas meter

Your gas meter is an accurate automatic measuring instrument. Your gas meter is read monthly, and your consumption is determined by subtracting the previous month’s meter reading from the current month’s reading. The part of a meter that shows the amount of gas used is called an index. In our system, there are two basic types of indexes.

How to read your gas meter

If your meter has round dials (as shown below) and the pointer is between two numbers, always record the lower number. The one exception is if the pointer is between 9 & 0 (zero); you then read 9 because the zero represents the completion of a cycle. When the pointer is directly on a number, check the dial to the right. If the dial to the right has not passed zero, record the lower number for the dial on the left. To obtain a reading, read the dials right to left, recording the numbers in the same order, right to left.

The correct reading for this meter is 1378. This means that 1378 hundred cubic feet (MCF) of gas has passed through the meter since all dials were on zero. Another way to write this amount is 137,800 cubic feet.

The other type of meter index you can see is called a direct read. An example is shown below. This type of index works much like an odometer on your car. To take a reading, all you have to do is read the number. Each of the numbers would correlate to one of the dials shown.

The set marked “half foot” and “two feet” are not used in the meter reading. These dials are only used for test purposes. To determine how much gas has been used since the previous reading, simply subtract last month’s reading from the current reading.