The town of Stonewall is moving ahead with water meter reader replacement.

Mayor Lockie McLean says a tender has been awarded to local Stonewall contract Patterson Mechanical to swap out old meter readers in homes in the community for new digital frequency readers. The project had an allocated cost of $820,000 in the town's 2017 budget, with some funding coming from the province and federal gas tax.

"We tendered it out ... and we just went with the lowest tender which was significantly lower than anybody else," McLean says.

McLean anticipates the new readers will provide a lot more accuracy and hopes the transition will be smooth for the community.

"We've got a lot of old meters and some of them aren't working right," he says. "With the new digital frequency readers, there's going to be a lot more accuracy, and hope there isn't a lot of shock with that accuracy."

The job is expected to begin this spring.