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How to name stuff that measures water and electricity, gas (whatever...) usage in your house? Is there any term to name them all together?

Need common term, e.g. "domestic meters"

Ivan Gerasimenko
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3 Answers3

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You could consider using utility meter which includes:

Electricity meter, gas meter, water meter, heat meter

You can visit the above Wikipedia link and see what it is.

Edit after @Ben Kovitz and @Zach Lipton's comments:

I think most fluent speakers wouldn't typically use the term "utility meter" and might not even think of it. But "utility meter" follows common patterns of phrase-coining so well that a fluent speaker easily understands the distinction it draws.

I think most speakers would generally refer to a specific type of utility meter, such as a "water meter" or "electric meter." The term "utility meter" isn't that commonly used because it's pretty rare to need to talk about them as a group.

J.R.
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  • In this context, what is a heat meter? – TecBrat May 19 '16 at 18:25
  • @TecBrat When heat is provided by a utility company through a "central heating" system, there is a meter to check how much heat has been used in your house. –  May 19 '16 at 18:31
  • I've never encountered the term "heat meter" for this kind of thing. A quick search on Google suggests that this isn't common usage. The Wikipedia page might be misleading because the "heat meter" that it mentions is used by utility companies but is not normally found at residential houses. But "utility meter" is indeed a great find and the perfect answer to the question. – Ben Kovitz May 20 '16 at 07:11
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    Could you add some kind of note that "utility meter" is not a commonly used term but any fluent speaker would understand it without difficulty? I think most fluent speakers have never used or even encountered the term "utility meter" and would have considerable difficulty thinking of it. (I was unable to think of an answer to this question other than "meter".) But "utility meter" follows common patterns of phrase-coining so well that a fluent speaker easily understands the distinction it draws. This might also help teach the phrasal grammar of English. – Ben Kovitz May 20 '16 at 07:57
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    I think most speakers would generally refer to a specific type of utility meter, such as a "water meter" or "electric meter." The term "utility meter" isn't that commonly used because it's pretty rare to need to talk about them as a group unless you happen to work for a company that makes the things or something similar. – Zach Lipton May 20 '16 at 08:23
  • @BenKovitz I edited my answer and please go ahead and edit the post if you don't like it. –  May 20 '16 at 08:32
  • I think it's excellent. :) – Ben Kovitz May 20 '16 at 08:43
  • @BenKovitz Calorimeter (mainland Europe) and BTU-meter (UK, from British Thermal Units) is sometimes used. I have seen heat-meter in a couple of places. Most people, who don't live in a place with central heat distribution, probably don't know there is such a thing. – Tonny May 20 '16 at 12:33
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    I can't agree with the strong disclaimer. This is a common term. There is a wikipedia article for it, even. Check out Google Ngram. It's true that it's not as common as the individual names, but it's wrong to imply that it's somehow a new term which happens to follow a pattern. – mattdm May 20 '16 at 14:22
  • @mattdm I understand what you mean and I share your opinion. But I don't think those two comments are wrong and decided to post their opinions as part of the answer. –  May 20 '16 at 14:25
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    I would use utility meter if I didn't know what kind of meter it was, for example "I liked everything about the last house we looked at, except for that big utility meter right in the middle of the yard." – ColleenV May 20 '16 at 16:35
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    @mattdm Some results from Google Books: "gas meter", 234,000; "water meter", 210,000; "electric meter", 84,800; "utility meter", 10,100. Beware arguments from statistics! (Including Google Books.) Note also that having a Wikipedia article is weak evidence that a term is common; consider, for example, viviparity, which has 33,000 results on Google Books. And check out this Google Ngram. – Ben Kovitz May 20 '16 at 18:01
  • Utility meter seems a reasonable generic term to refer to any one of those types of meter. To refer to all of them at once I would say utilities meters, indeed @BenKovitz that is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the question. Noting that rent and utilities is a common term (here in Australia, anyway) when talking about living expenses. – nnnnnn May 23 '16 at 13:02
  • @nnnnnn Rent and utilities is also common in the US. Also, utilities refers collectively to electric companies, gas companies, water companies, etc. Mentioning that would help explain why utility meter is the perfect answer to this question even though that phrase is not in common use. What do you think, Rathony? – Ben Kovitz May 23 '16 at 13:42
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I think you're thinking of meter. An electricity meter may look like this:

enter image description here

From Macmillan Dictionary:

meter
NOUN
[countable] a piece of equipment for measuring how much of something such as gas, electricity, or water you have used
an electricity meter
Someone from the gas company came to read the meter (=to check how much gas has been used).

Some useful related terms (besides utility meters, which is already mentioned in another answer) are smart meters, telemetry, telemeters, metering, telemetering. The term used by the original poster himself, domestic meter, is also in use (also related: domestic variable-rate meters, in-house meters, etc.).

Damkerng T.
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  • Need common term, e.g. "domestic meters" – Ivan Gerasimenko May 19 '16 at 15:49
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    I would simply use "meter". (Of course utility meter is not wrong, and sounds a bit more specific. Then again, while meter may include all kinds of meters, it's not wrong either.) – Damkerng T. May 19 '16 at 15:49
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    Interesting that you say "electricity meter." I usually hear it as electric meter or water meter, but that may be a regionalism. – J.R. May 19 '16 at 16:01
  • I guess so, @J.R. I wrote it without thinking because I wrote it that way before (in some of the MDMS (meter data management system) specifications I've written). It looks like electric meter is more common indeed. – Damkerng T. May 19 '16 at 16:07
  • OP (apparently) means "common" as in referring to all of the meters collectively, not "common" as in common parlance. – A C May 19 '16 at 17:37
  • I understand that, @AC. I wrote this answer before the OP said anything about that, and actually I didn't really want to answer this question in the first place, because it was unclear, but I changed my mind because before the OP edited hos question there was a comment (now deleted) suggesting something else, which was nothing about meter or metering at all. (I can't remember what it was right now.) And by the time I found my picture and added the definition, the question changed quite a bit. – Damkerng T. May 19 '16 at 17:57
  • @J.R. "electric meter" is pretty common in the UK, too, though it comes across as somewhat informal. (Logically speaking, one would expect an "electric meter" to be a meter that's electrically powered -- c.f., electric car, electric oven, electric mixer. Here, we mean a meter whose purpose is to measure electricity. Though it is electrically powered, that's kinda incidental.) – David Richerby May 19 '16 at 18:49
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    @IvanGerasimenko In context, "meter" is a generic term for the electric meter, gas meter, etc. For example, there is a job called "meter reader", which doesn't specify which type of meter that the person reads. To be completely clear, "utility meter" is probably best but seldom necessary, and most people have never heard of it. See also the principle of long and short forms here. – Ben Kovitz May 20 '16 at 07:17
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    @J.R. - In Australia we say "electricity meter". It measures usage of electricity, not usage of electric. When I hear "electric meter" I think of a meter that is powered by electricity, in the same sense that an "electric car" is powered by electricity rather than petrol. – nnnnnn May 23 '16 at 12:47
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I personally would use the term metering devices to name them altogether.

C.Champagne
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