Reading a Meter
Electric meters read in kilowatt hours, just as a water meter reads in gallons and a gas meter in cubic feet. A kilowatt hour is the electrical energy consumed by 1000 watts of electricity used for one hour. Ten 100-watt light bulbs burning for one hour would use one kilowatt-hour—one kwh.
Figure 1. Some meters give the reading directly, like the mileage total on a speedometer.
Some meters are read directly, as shown in Figure 1. The more common type has four dials which are read from right to left—just the opposite from the way things are usually read. The hand on the extreme right turns clockwise, the next hand turns counter-clockwise, the next clockwise; the last hand on the left turns counter-clockwise.
The first dial on the right can register up to 10 kilowatt-hours; the second up to 100 kwh; the third, to 1000 kwh; the fourth, to 10,000 kwh. After that, the meter starts over again. To take a reading you must read all four dials of the meter, from right to left.
Figure 2. Meter dials are read from right to left.
To read each dial, you use the number last passed by the dial hand. This may not be nearest the hand. For instance, if the pointer has passed 6 and is almost on 7, you read it as 6. Write down the figures in the same order you read the dial, from right to left. Practice reading the meters shown in Figure 3 on the following page.