Reading the Meter

Reading the Meter

We are a cooperative and depend upon each of the rural member/consumers to read their own meter. This saves you money by lowering the payroll and transportation cost.

Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative lines are scattered over parts of nine counties, making it cost prohibitive for your Cooperative to read every meter each month. There are approximately 16,000 meters distributed over 2,700 miles of electric lines.

On your billing card each month, you will find boxes provided to write in your meter reading, or you may call in you reading to the Cooperative. A good practice is to read your meter(s) on the same day each month. This keeps the length of each billing period consistent. The fluctuations in your bills can then be attributed to habits, weather,and long or short billing periods.

If a meter reading is not returned, your next month's bill will be estimated, based on an average of the three previous months. After two consecutive estimated bills, a Cooperative employee will read the meter to avoid continued estimations. There will be a charge for these readings.

Guernsey-Muskingum will randomly read and inspect all meters on the system. There is no charge for these random readings.
Members of the seasonal electric rate do not read their own meters. Guernsey-Muskingum employees read these meters in February and the seasonal bills are mailed in March.
All meters will be sealed with a GMEC seal. If your meter seal is broken or missing, please notify our office and a service person will reseal the meter at no cost.

Members should report any noticeable damage to the meter or meter glass. In addition, the member should notify the Cooperative if their monthly bills are declining even though their consumption habits have not changed as this may indicate the meter is slowing.

All Guernsey-Muskingum Electric Cooperative employees have photo identification. They will be glad to show you their identification to verify they are representatives of the Cooperative.