Tag Archive for: meter

Nag About Water Savings the Modern, Twitter Way

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I’m old fashioned, I guess… my method of encouraging conservation around the house involves nag, nag and nag some more. I’ve seen the light though via Jason Garland (jgarland79water on Twitter). His spiffy new water meter keeps careful tabs on water use, then sends out a seemingly never-ending series of tweets about it!

If a high annoyance level will motivate us to change our behavior, this ought to do the trick! Jason’s twitterfeed now boasts nearly 4,500 tweets, every single one of which reminds him of his daily and monthly totals.

Below, see Jason’s You Tube video showing the tweet-happy meter…which looks to me pretty similar to the old-style bill-mailing variety!

According to his You Tube page, his equipment source was http://www.watermeters.com/)

Headline Let-Down: Aussie Metered Toilets?!

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You know the feeling, you see a tantalizing headline and bolt upright in your chair; like today, when “Doomsday Jim” (this blog’s eyes and ears “down-under”) sends a link to this:

AUSTRALIA’S TOILET TAX WILL CHARGE AUSSIES PER FLUSH

Wow! I read further on macedonia.eu:  

Householders would be charged for each flush under a radical new toilet tax designed to help beat the drought.

This is groundbreaking! Naturally, I am envisioning something like this:

Let’s read more! How shall they implement and administrate this exciting innovation?

The reform would see the abolition of the property-based charge with one based on a pay-as-you-go rate and a small fixed annual fee to cover the cost of meter readings and pipeline maintenance…As nearly all of (the homes in) mainland Australia’s cities and towns already have water meters, introduction of a volumetric charge, such as that used in the City of Bellaire, would not be difficult to implement.

Oh. Charges based on volume. Just like they do it my suburb. I’ve shared my belief over the years that the headline and lead-in should be 5% of the word count but 95% of the labor. This is yet more proof of the truth.

Unnecessary footnote: Photo is a faked-up photoshop job by the author. To my knowledge no such metered toilet exists.