Discover all you need to know about your water meter.
Got a remote water meter?
In September and November 2024, we upgraded the mechanical meters at some of our high water-using businesses to remote water meters.
A pilot to roll out remote water meters at homes in Windermere is taking place in 2025.
Your meter will look like the picture below if you have a remote water meter. It has a small box on the top of it. Mechanical meters do not.
Find out more about the pilot roll out of remote water meters in Tauranga.
Got a mechanical meter?
Most households and businesses have mechanical meters, like the image below.
Water meters record how much water your household or business is using. Water meters are located in a box in the ground near your front boundary. The white numbers on the black background count your water usage in cubic metres (1000 litres). This is the reading your quarterly water invoice will be based on. The digits shown in red are not recorded by council when they read your meter.
For example the image below reads 00000.270 cubic metres.
Water meter replacements
Water meters run slower and become less accurate over time. That’s why we replace and upgrade them on a continuous basis across our city.
If your water meter is due for replacement, a council employee will visit your property during business hours. You do not need to be at home, and there is no charge to you.
The work will take around 15-30 minutes and your water supply will be turned off during this time. If you are home, we will check first if it’s a convenient time before going ahead. Once the new meter is installed, we may need to enter your property to flush an outside tap for five to 10 seconds to get rid of any air or water discolouration. If you’re not at home, we’ll leave a card in your mailbox to let you know your water meter has been replaced.
If you have any questions, please call us on 07 577 7000.
Water meters on shared properties
If you share a driveway or live in a block of flats, there will likely be a primary water meter at the roadside boundary (measuring all the water entering the property) and then additional meters for each dwelling.
Council is responsible for all of the meters but property owners are responsible for the pipes that connect these meters. If a leak is discovered, it is up to the property owners to resolve it and pay for repairs to these private pipes.
Remote water meters
Remote water meters give more detail about your water use, helping you save water and manage your water bill.
A remote water meter digitally measures use, providing access to regular data. They can also help detect issues with both the water connection and usage on the site, detecting leaks early, backflow events, and high and low usage based on historic trends at your place.
Data from the meters in the pilot programme in Windermere is transmitted through a unit attached to the meter, and can be viewed on a dashboard in real-time. This helps users to understand how much water is being used. It is not collecting other data, such as personal information, and is a separate system from Wi-Fi and public broadband.
Council will be receiving the data from the remote meters in Windermere regularly, meaning we can audit the data to ensure its accuracy.
Remote water metering is a new initiative across New Zealand but is well established internationally. Tauranga is going to be rolling out various small remote water metering initiatives in 2024 and 2025 part of the discovery phase of an upcoming business case around potential city-wide remote meter deployment.
Remote meter frequently asked questions
There is a possibility the email has gone to your spam or junk inboxes. Please search in there for the subject line 'Activation details for the Itron Meter Portal'.
If no email exists, please contact our team on waterscontractsupport@tauranga.govt.nz
You'll receive an out-of-cycle bill once the meter is installed, as this will generate the final bill with your previous mechanical meter. It might be smaller than you might usually expect, as it will not cover a full quarter like bills usually do.
You'll receive another bill in May, at the end of the usual quarter, that covers what's been used since your new meter has been installed.
Logins are provided to the homeowner, or business owner. If you are renting your home and would like to see your usage, please speak to your landlord or property manager.
The login will only allow you to see your data, no one else's.
Once you have been sent a link to log in, click on your address. This will take you through to a new webpage, which shows you a consumption table and a bar graph. Examples of what these look like are below.
The bar graph will show you what water you’re using over a specific time period. See an increase? That might be from your shower or washing machine.
You can change the way the graph looks, and the period it covers, above the graph.
The consumption table gives more detailed information on your usage for your chosen time period.
The maximum and minimum flow readings represent the highest points and lowest points of the graph.
Water use is measured in cubic metres (m3). For reference, 1m3 is equivalent to 1000 litres (L).
No, we don’t. Your water meter is in a box near your front boundary. However, we will need to temporarily shut down your water for about five minutes while we change the meter.
The remote water meters are expected to improve accuracy of invoices. It will also enable you to see your use, and if you would like to, identify ways to manage consumption and therefore, cost. The water data is transmitted to our office daily to inform billing. It also means we can audit data regularly to make sure it is accurate.
Council, as we are responsible for all water metering. This is the same as with mechanical meters, which our team upgrades and replaces as required.
Some do. Auckland is in the process of updating its mechanical meters to remote water meters currently, while Wellington and New Plymouth are installing metering for the first time, with remote meters being made standard. Internationally, remote metering has been adopted as standard practice for metering fleets.