Smart water meter installations moving forward in Sudbury

Greater Sudbury is in the process of installing smart water meters at homes and businesses. (File)

Greater Sudbury is in the process of installing smart water meters at homes and businesses.

Officials said the pandemic has delayed the installations in some cases, with people simply not feeling comfortable having installers in their homes.

With restrictions lifting and concerns easing, the city is now sending notices to people who delayed the installation and say it's worth getting it done.

"If people don't get a smart meter installed, we will be charging them a $50 a month manual meter read fee," said Michael Loken, the project director for automated meter infrastructure with the City of Greater Sudbury.

"This is an administrative (fee we) are going to be using to recover the cost to send somebody to their house to read their meter in the absence of a smart meter. So we encourage people to get a smart meter installed because it will totally allow them to avoid that fee."

City officials confirmed the smart water meters can be read remotely on a near real-time basis, which will do away with most in-person meter readings.