How to Read an Electric Meter

Though everybody knows that an electric meter is used to find the amount of electricity their house is consuming, not many know how to read the meter readings. If you wonder how the little dials on that electric meter convey about the electric consumption, learn to read the electric meter. Here are some instructions that will help you know how to read an electric meter.

Instructions

Stand in front of your meter with a pen and paper (to write down the observed readings). Read and record each dial starting from the right dial moving left.
As you see the dials moving, write down the digit that the hand/arrow passed. You will notice that some hands turn right and some left. Carefully observe dials movements.
If you observe that the clock’s arrow/hand is between two numbers, write down the smaller number i.e. the number that the arrow has just passed.
If you observe the arrow in a clock is directly on a number, you may get confused which digit to consider (whether to write down that number or the next lower number). In this case have a look at the clock kept to its right. If the arrow on the “clock” to the right has passed 0, write down the number for the left “clock”, which the arrow seems to be on. However, if the right clock arrow has not passed 0, it means the left clock’s arrow is not directly on the number, so write down the lower next number.
Calculate your total electricity usage by subtracting the ending reading from the beginning reading. To calculate the cost of the energy used, multiply the number of kilowatt-hours by the cost per kilowatt-hour charged by your energy supplier.

Now that you know how to read your electric meter, you can easily monitor your energy usage to keep your electricity cost under control and also track your energy saving efforts.

Reading the Spinning Disk

Electricity that flows into your house creates an electromagnetic field that causes a disk in your meter to spin. The more the electricity flows into your home, the larger will be the electromagnetic field resulting in faster spinning of the disk. You can use this disk spinning speed to determine how much power is being consumed at that moment by switching your appliances on or off.