Water Meter Question.......yes, another one.

BattleCorp

Seeing as a lot of meters have been installed already, I'm assuming that they are clocking up readings as water is flowing through them.

How do Irish Water know how much water I have used when my first bill is due? The meter started clocking once it was installed but we aren't supposed to start paying for water until next year.

Are Irish Water going to miraculously read every water meter in the country at midnight on New Years Eve to get accurate water bills or do we get illegally charged for what we are using now also?

Sir Arthur Daley

They will switch them all off and back on again.

kneemos

Santa is being given the contract on his rounds.

Hotfail.com

We'll just get another patronising bullshít ad explaining this in a few weeks time.


"Safeguarding your water for your future" my hole.

B.A._Baracus

Am I the only one who is totally confused by the Water Charges?
I keep hearing different reports. Last of which was that the first bill in 2015 will just be a flat rate for all. Then actual charging on usage will commence.

BattleCorp

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

They will switch them all off and back on again.

All of them at exactly the same time?

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller

I only bathe in, and drink tea made with, Evian water anyway.

Edit: On reflection, that sounds like I drink tea made from my own bath water. This is not the case at all. Well, not all the time at least. Special occasions only.

PizzamanIRL

They have huge water beakers to measure how much you used

PizzamanIRL

If I get sick in my sink and it flows where the water flows, will that count as water and will I be charged for getting sick?

Sir Arthur Daley

BattleCorp wrote: »

All of them at exactly the same time?

Yep, the meters have built in wireless and can be controlled remotely.

flutered

more than one house has been purchased for key money, what will happen then, who will geet the bill.

AnonoBoy

Water meters?

Are they putting in water meters?

First I've heard of it.

BeerWolf

BattleCorp wrote: »

All of them at exactly the same time?

Set it to GMT time.

stimpson

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

Yep, the meters have built in wireless and can be controlled remotely.

No the don't. The can be read by passing near them but they cannot be controlled.

Sir Arthur Daley

stimpson wrote: »

No the don't. The can be read by passing near them but they cannot be controlled.

I have inside knowledge on this and they do, the meters have a processor and uses gps to communicate.

paulbok

GPS is not a communication tool

cocoman

stimpson wrote: »

No the don't. The can be read by passing near them but they cannot be controlled.

Correct. Readings commence in October. Bills in January.

Tail Docker

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

Yep, the meters have built in wireless and can be controlled remotely.

ooh! Hacker opportunity. I can see the ads now -

"Water meter correction - we can correct your water meter readout, takes two minutes, Mobile service..."

They can fit it in between knocking 60 thou off VW Passats..

St. Leibowitz

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

I have inside knowledge on this and they do, the meters have a processor and uses gps to communicate.

LOL. And LOL again. Inside knowledge, and completely wrong.

biko

They know you touch your meter at night..

Sir Arthur Daley

St. Leibowitz wrote: »

LOL. And LOL again. Inside knowledge, and completely wrong.

All true, i cant reveal any more info duty bound.

kneemos

St. Leibowitz wrote: »

LOL. And LOL again. Inside knowledge, and completely wrong.

LOL.

AlanS181824

I read your username as BottleCap... Might be time to sleep.

stimpson

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

I have inside knowledge on this and they do, the meters have a processor and uses gps to communicate.

They use GPS to communicate? Riiiight.

MajesticDonkey

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

I have inside knowledge on this and they do, the meters have a processor and uses gps to communicate.

The meters can be communicated wirelessly from about 100 meters through a radio wave transmitter/receiver, which can be used to get data from the meter. It cannot be done over the internet. I'm 99% sure it's not possible to reset the meters wirelessly - I believe they have to be manually reset. The meters also do not have GPS built-in - the handhelds that read them do.

donegal__road

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

The meters can be communicated wirelessly from about 100 meters through a radio wave transmitter/receiver, which can be used to get data from the meter. It cannot be done over the internet. I'm 99% sure it's not possible to reset the meters wirelessly - I believe they have to be manually reset. The meters also do not have GPS built-in - the handhelds that read them do.

they are easy to hack apparently.. which means a hacker can hack their water meter and reduce their bill, or hack a neighbour's meter that they don't like and increase their bill. These meters can also be used for surveillance since water usage indicates the presence or absence of the homeowner.

MajesticDonkey

donegal__road wrote: »

they are easy to hack apparently.. which means a hacker can hack their water meter and reduce their bill, or hack a neighbour's meter that they don't like and increase their bill.

I wouldn't say they're that easy to hack to be honest. Itron are the biggest water meter manufacturer in the world, so I doubt they wouldn't have tested this sort of thing, especially with a customer like IW who is going to be one of the biggest water utilities in Europe once all the meters are installed.

donegal__road wrote: »

These meters can also be used for surveillance since water usage indicates the presence or absence of the homeowner.

Build a contraption to flush your toilet every half hour

Tokyo

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

The meters can be communicated wirelessly from about 100 meters through a radio wave transmitter/receiver, which can be used to get data from the meter. It cannot be done over the internet. I'm 99% sure it's not possible to reset the meters wirelessly - I believe they have to be manually reset. The meters also do not have GPS built-in - the handhelds that read them do.

Yep - they have been using the same flowmeter collection systems in Australia for a while now (they'll be using more or less the same unit here - same manufacturer, the old man is involved in the handover of the pumping stations and water network to Irish water at the moment). In and around a 100m range, radio transmission and reception only, no GPS or anything like that. Most meters will be read by a handheld meter on a driveby, but in towns and cities where the meters are less than 100m apart, you can read all of the meters in an area from an endpoint data collection point - the meters can relay data from the end of the line up the chain to the receiver.

donegal__road

Hacking water meters is becoming more easy

MajesticDonkey

donegal__road wrote: »

Hacking water meters is becoming more easy

Yeah, it's true it would be fairly easy to disrupt the meter communicating if you know the frequency at which the transponder ("MIU") on the meter communicates on. If you know this, it's just a case of broadcasting another signal at the same frequency near the meter.

Hacking isn't as easy, because you'll need to know what each frame the MIU sends looks like, i.e. how the data it sends is formatted.

stimpson

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Yeah, it's true it would be fairly easy to disrupt the meter communicating if you know the frequency at which the transponder ("MIU") on the meter communicates on. If you know this, it's just a case of broadcasting another signal at the same frequency near the meter.

Hacking isn't as easy, because you'll need to know what each frame the MIU sends looks like, i.e. how the data it sends is formatted.

The wireless signal is encrypted with AES I believe.

MajesticDonkey

stimpson wrote: »

The wireless signal is encrypted with AES I believe.

Seems logical

TallGlass

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Yeah, it's true it would be fairly easy to disrupt the meter communicating if you know the frequency at which the transponder ("MIU") on the meter communicates on. If you know this, it's just a case of broadcasting another signal at the same frequency near the meter.

Hacking isn't as easy, because you'll need to know what each frame the MIU sends looks like, i.e. how the data it sends is formatted.

Nothing that some RF shielding wouldn't stop or even just gaining access to the PCB board and overloading it.

Two things I am interested in.

How much we will be ripped off by for water processing

Will they upgrade the network and will we see % loss of processed water dropping? In fact has this been set as a target for IW ? Considering it's all about conserving water they should have to decrease the % loss of output.

MajesticDonkey

TallGlass wrote: »

Nothing that some RF shielding wouldn't stop or even just gaining access to the PCB board and overloading it.

Both of which will get you caught fairly quickly.

TallGlass

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Both of which will get you caught fairly quickly.

Well nothing to say you can't put RF shielding in the meter. As for the PCB, boards do fail they wouldn't know the difference. There's no point in messing around with the meter, there going to bill one way or another.

I am more interested in seeing the stats after a year if they manage to drop the output loss in the network. The Dublin City Council water network had some ridiculous figure of like 40% loss between source and end point.

Seemingly this is the public's fault for paying our taxes, yet someone forgot to upgrade the water pipes while everything else was been upgraded we now need IW to come to rescue.

Yet while they are digging up every water cut off point in the country they are making the problem worse and upping the water loss the exact reason we where told IW was set up for.

Banjo String

Here's a question.

What happens in the scenario that a homeowner refuses to engage with IW over an estimated bill?

What happens there?

kneemos

Banjo String wrote: »

Here's a question.

What happens in the scenario that a homeowner refuses to engage with IW over an estimated bill?

What happens there?[/


Air strike.

Banjo String

kneemos wrote: »

Air strike.

With water bombs?

stimpson

TallGlass wrote: »

Well nothing to say you can't put RF shielding in the meter. As for the PCB, boards do fail they wouldn't know the difference. There's no point in messing around with the meter, there going to bill one way or another.

I am more interested in seeing the stats after a year if they manage to drop the output loss in the network. The Dublin City Council water network had some ridiculous figure of like 40% loss between source and end point.

Seemingly this is the public's fault for paying our taxes, yet someone forgot to upgrade the water pipes while everything else was been upgraded we now need IW to come to rescue.

Yet while they are digging up every water cut off point in the country they are making the problem worse and upping the water loss the exact reason we where told IW was set up for.

After fitting the meter they check for leaks between the meter and the house by ensuring that when all taps are off, there is no flow recorded. If there are any leaks detected beyond the meter then there is money set aside by the government to fix these leaks.

TheChizler

And to answer the OP the meters more than likely don't just record the current reading, they'll record a certain amount of historical data, meaning the drive by reader can query usage since a certain point in time, or some variant of the above.

TheChizler

And also, does anyone know what exactly this 'plug' that's in the news recently is? None of the news articles or radio pieces I've heard give any detail, I presume it's something that immobilises the flow meter. Find it funny that these anti groups are at least advocating what is essentially fraud, or worst a criminal offence.

Sir Arthur Daley

The plug disrupts the processor, it stops its cycle.

Tokyo

TheChizler wrote: »

And also, does anyone know what exactly this 'plug' that's in the news recently is? None of the news articles or radio pieces I've heard give any detail, I presume it's something that immobilises the flow meter. Find it funny that these anti groups are at least advocating what is essentially fraud, or worst a criminal offence.

If I'm not mistaken, it's just a threaded bung. Turn off water flow, unscrew meter, screw in bung in place of meter, turn on water.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/campaign-groups-urge-public-to-use-2-plastic-plug-in-water-charges-protests-637534.html

Anti-water charges campaign groups across Ireland are encouraging the public to remove their water meters and use a €2 plastic plug to keep their water flowing.

TheChizler

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

The plug disrupts the processor, it stops its cycle.

That's what I mean by lack of detail :P

So it's some magnetic device? Or a steel spike driven into the processor? Or is there some accessible circuitry that it simply shorts? Not sure how they think that will work, as the mechanical part of the meter will surely still be working away and displaying the correct data?

TheChizler

mike_ie wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, it's just a threaded bung. Turn off water flow, unscrew meter, screw in bung in place of meter, turn on water.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/campaign-groups-urge-public-to-use-2-plastic-plug-in-water-charges-protests-637534.html

Ah so just purely bypassing the meter. Ingenious...

Why do utility companies always send the nice bills out after christmas? This will be bill no.1 and we will have no idea how much we've spent up till then.

BeerWolf

They state that each home will pay an ‘assessed’ or average charge which amounts to €176 for a household with one adult, with another €102 levied for every additional person over the age of 18 in the property.

If only one service is needed - for example if a home has a septic tank and does not use a public sewer - the charge is halved.The cost of a single service - water or wastewater - will be €88 for one adult, doubling to €176 for both. In a two-adult household, the charge rises to €139 and €278 respectively.

Pretty pricey ain't it ?

LINK

So... €380 per month with 3 adults [over 18s] o.O;

RandomName2

BeerWolf wrote: »

Pretty pricey ain't it ?

LINK

So... €380 per month with 3 adults [over 18s] o.O;

Is that per month!? :eek:

Surely not?

Would prefer a flat rate over metering... would be one less thing to worry about. :mad:

BeerWolf

RandomName2 wrote: »

Is that per month!? :eek:

Surely not?

Would prefer a flat rate over metering... would be one less thing to worry about. :mad:

Nah, pretty sure it's annually. I'm just confused with this charge and the metering...

Pay the flat rate, or the meter for €2.44 / 1000 litres, or both?

MajesticDonkey

The CER also says:

* Where water is unfit for human consumption, affected customers will receive a 50pc
discount on the water supply charge for the duration of the restriction.

Are they having a laugh? I've been on a boil notice for the last 8 years and they want me to pay 50%?

EazyD

MajesticDonkey wrote: »

Are they having a laugh? I've been on a boil notice for the last 8 years and they want me to pay 50%?

That is a total joke in fairness.