CASE STUDY
A Small Water Company Gets Big Results With Metron’s Cellular Smart Meters
Hands-on support and hassle-free installation helped Corinthian Bay Mutual Water Co. to level up their water management.
When it comes to water utilities, Corinthian Bay Mutual Water Company is about as small as it gets: a tiny neighborhood nonprofit serving just a few dozen homes in Lakeport, California. For years, Water co-president John Wiskirchen and his team of volunteers made do with ancient analog metering equipment—in part because water-tech companies showed little interest in helping them upgrade their infrastructure.
“There’s only a few of us running the whole company, and given our size most water-tech companies wouldn’t give us the time of day,” Wiskirchen says. “We were stuck reading our meters manually once a month, and sending customers a bill just once a year.”
That all changed when a friend working for a major metro utility suggested Wiskirchen give Metron a call. Within a week, a sales representative drove out to Lakeport to discuss Corinthian Bay’s needs and chat with board members and local residents—and brought along Metron’s top-of-the-line cellular meters to demonstrate their on-site wireless connectivity.
“With most competing systems, you have to build a network from scratch, with wireless towers and collectors to send the data back to you—but Metron’s Prism devices are connected to Verizon’s IoT cellular network before they leave the factory,” explains Metron regional manager Brian Tomari. “Installation couldn’t be easier—everything simply works from the moment your devices arrive.” Knowing their devices would be running on a major commercial IoT wireless network gave Corinthian Bay confidence to move forward. With no up-front infrastructure requirements, and no hidden maintenance or support costs moving forward, Wiskirchen contracted to install Metron sensors across Corinthian Bay’s system.
The order was processed quickly—and with Metron’s plug-and-play solution, Corinthian Bay’s team of volunteers were able to rapidly install the new meters across their network. Every single device performed flawlessly, with a 100% read-rate—and because each sensor was pre-registered in Metron’s WaterScope® portal, the Corinthian Bay team began receiving real-time water usage data from across their network within minutes of installation.
“It was like night and day,” Wiskirchen says. “Before, we had no data at all—just our monthly meter readings. Now, we have full visibility into precisely how and where water is being used all across our system.”
The new tech is already paying big dividends. With automated daily meter reads and flow data, Corinthian Bay was able to rapidly identify multiple households with water leaks in excess of 1500 gallons per day—about 90% of an average household’s water consumption.
That’s an especially big deal in a community where many properties are holiday homes that remain unoccupied for weeks or months at a time. Residents can now access their own home’s water data online or via a mobile app, checking that everything is working as it should even when they’re hundreds of miles away.
“That’s something that second-home owners absolutely love about Metron,” Tomari adds. “Using our tools, they fix leaking pipes before they cause property damage—or spot dripping taps or leaky toilets that would otherwise leave them facing massive water bills.”
With real-time data and the ability to generate overages far more regularly and rapidly, Corinthian Bay is able to help homeowners to proactively identify and fix those leaks, ensuring they don’t get any nasty surprises at the end of the month. They can also reduce overall water consumption for the community as a whole—a big deal in a drought-prone state like California.
Next up, Corinthian Bay plans to add Metron smart metering to their master water supply, providing full visibility into water flowing into the network, giving the team even more awareness of and control over water loss and leaks occurring across their network.
“We only ordered a small number of meters—but Metron rolled out the red carpet and made sure we got everything we needed,” Wiskirchen says. “With that kind of attention and support, even the smallest water companies can benefit from the same advanced metering solutions used by big metro providers.”
The Spectrum Jet S30 brass meter with Prism cellular register, as installed in Lakeport.