Here is a quick and simple video guide on how to read a water meter:
Guide on How to Read a Water Meter – Quick Navigation
For the longer video and additional information see our page on water meter readings.
How to Read a Water Meter – Dials and Numbers
In this next section, we will explain the various parts to help you understand how to read a UK water meter, this is based on a typical UK analogue water meter, not a digital water meter.
Each of the components serves a different function and helps you understand how much water you might be using over a specific time, which might in turn guide you understand your water bill more too!
There are four main components to help understand how to read a water meter:
- Black numbers on a water meter
- Red numbers on a water meter
- Numbered dial on a water meter
- Spinning cog on a water meter
There may be other numbers (like a water meter ID number for each meter) and other text, possibly including the water meter manufacturer – you can see examples on this at the plumbing superstore.
Water Meter Numbers – Black and Red
The most familiar and, often prominent, part of a water meter is the black and red numbers. Understanding these will help you greatly with how to read a water meter.
Looking at the numbers above, it shows ‘323,501’ with the ‘323’ being in black numbers and the ‘501’ being in red numbers but what does that mean?
Well to start this, lets work from right to left on this occasion, the final red ‘1’ is for one litre. Therefore, looking at all the red numbers on this water meter, that is 501 litres. Taking that a step further to the black numbers on the water meter, that is thousands of litres (so 323,000 litres).
Bear in mind that 1,000 litres is equivalent to 1 meter cubed (1M³) of water, so 1m x 1m x 1m.
Combining the red and black numbers on the water meter is simply 323,501 litres of water used. On this topic you might find our Water Use Calculator very helpful too!
Water Meter – Dials and ‘Cogs’
The next step to understanding how to read a water meter is helped by explaining the dials and cogs shown in the above diagram. Let’s start with the dial on the left that looks a bit like a clock.
As you can see the dial goes from 0-9 and rotates clockwise, counting upwards. Each complete turn of that dial is one litre and so, each time it goes up, the final red number on a water meter will normally go up by one too. Therefore, it logically follows that going from one number to another on that dial is one-tenth of a litre or 100ml.
The final part to help you understand how to read a water meter in the UK is the little black ‘cog’ which does not have numbers on it. This time, one complete orbit of that moves the dial on the left one number on, so each full turn is 100ml and each ‘notch’ moving on is 10ml.
To put that into perspective, in the UK, one metric tablespoon is around 15ml, so it is less than that. That said, over time, even small water leaks can add up and cause a lot of possible water damage to your property, especially in areas susceptible to damage.
That concludes our quick guide on how to read a water meter in the UK. Although it is worth remembering that, as time goes on, digital water meters (including smart water meters) are becoming more prevalent as well as smart water meters. The principle of the numbers is often the same as the above but do check. On that, see our guide to water leak sensors.
As experts in water leak detection services, we know that understanding how to read a water meter can be very handy to understand a water leak at your home or business.
On that, here are some more details about our trace and access services:
- Thermal Imaging Water Leak Detection
- Tracer Gas Water Leak Detection
- Acoustic Water Leak Detection
- Moisture Meter Water Leak Detection
- Pipe Detectors for Water Leaks
Here are some other similar articles you might find interesting too:
- Water Leak House and Meter
- Water Flow Meters
- How Much Water things use
- 5 Things That Leak Water
- Business Water Leak Detection
How to Read a Water Meter FAQs:
How do do you read your water meter?
When it comes to understanding how to read your water meter, the method will vary according to the type of water meter you have – most commonly these are analogue water meters (with numbers and dials) or a digital water meter, usually just with numbers. The numbers and digits on these correspond to the number of litres you are using. Different numbers will mean units of litres (single, tens, hundreds and thousands etc)
How do I know if my water meter is working?
To know if your water meter is working there are varying tests that can be done from simple to more complex. One of the simple things you can do is to carefully turn on a tap in your house and see if the numbers and dials move accordingly. To see if they are moving the right amount you need to measure the water used against what the water meter readings say and check if they agree (assuming nothing else is using water!)
How often do I need a water meter reading?
How often you need a water meter reading might depend on your water company policy, which in turn could be linked to your billing cycle (monthly, quarterly or annual water bills). However, nowadays there is an increase in smart water meters which, depending on the specification (and how often they are read or connected to) will likely provide much more detail than a standard water meter in the UK.