Reading Your Own Meter

After you've studied your last electric bill, go outside and find your electic meter. If it's like the one below, it's called a "dial" meter. Notice that all the faces on the dials are numbered 1 through 9, with 0 at the top. Now look closely and you will see that the numbers go around the face clockwise on some dials. But on every other dial, the numbers go around counterclockwise. The hands on the dials move in the same direction as the counting order of the numbers on the dials.

If you have a dial meter, you'll need to write down the number that each hand has just passed. Remember some hands move clockwise while some move counterclockwise.

To obtain your reading, start with the dial on the left and proceed right. The reading below is 66,649.

There is one more thing to reading your meter. If a hand is directly on a number and you don't know if the hand has passed or not, look at the dial to the immediate right. Has the hand passed 0? If the hand to the right has passed 0, write down the number the hand on the left is pointing to.

Below the left reading is "7," since the hand on the right has passed 0

The dials are read as "70" since the hand on the right has passed "0."

If the hand on the immediate right has not passed 0, write down the number the hand on the left has just passed.

Below the left reading is "6," since the hand on the right has now passed 0.

These dials are read as "69"