The City of Saskatoon is at 70% completion when it comes to the water meter change out program. The attachment to current city water meters has now been installed on approximately 53,000 homes.

Russ Munro the Director or Water and Waste Operations with the City of Saskatoon, says they are in the trailing end of the project after going neighbourhood by neighbourhood in order to be as efficient and effective as possible.

“Once we’re through that it will be a matter of going back and getting those addresses that were missed. Our regular meter readers will collect on that or a resident could have changed homes. That process won’t be as quick as what we’ve gone through with this first 70%, so it will still be ongoing for the next couple of years before we’re at 100%”.

Currently the City of Saskatoon is working in the River Heights area and are looking for residents to sign up. The next stops will include the Lawson Heights and Silverwood Heights communities. Munro explains residents can look for signs in their neighbourhood for when to call or sign up on the city’s website.

“For most of the installations we’re looking at 15-30 minutes to get the work done. There are some cases where if the water meter is older than 1994, that we would then be looking to replace the water meter as well. Those appointments take a little bit longer, but there is no cost to the resident.”

Munro describes the advantage of the advanced metering infrastructure as more accurate and timely billing, and from an environmental side if a resident decides to cutback, they should also see that reduction in water demand right away.

“From a city perspective, this gives us a much better idea of where the water is going. If you can imagine having a better picture of how much water is pumped out of the water treatment plant and then how much is sold, then the system can give us an idea around things like leaks, which can provide some advantages to our infrastructure folks going out and doing water mane repairs.”

Residents can sign up for their water meter change out by clicking here https://www.saskatoon.ca/services-residents/power-water-sewer/drinking-water/water-meters/water-meter-ami-project

or by calling 306-986-1731. Munro added that there are some evening appointments available for those who may require them.