Houston Public Works installed the wrong water meters at 637 homes during a 2024 effort to replace approximately 125,000 aging water meters and install remote-reading devices. The city discovered the installation error in January 2026, according to emails obtained through a public records request, and crews replaced the faulty equipment in March 2026.

Houston Public Works Director Randy Macchi acknowledged the lapse in an April 15 interview. "They actually installed the wrong register on those water meters. The register they had was not compatible. And so that means the meter itself was registering either faster or slower than what actually took place," Macchi said.

The meter manufacturer Badger shipped the wrong equipment in a large order at the end of 2022, which led to incompatible registers being installed. Faulty meters were installed across the city, including Kingwood, downtown Houston, near the airport and on the southwest side. A 1½-inch meter should have a Badger Model 120 register attached, according to Houston Public Works. If the register reads Model 170 instead, that is the wrong equipment, because a Model 170 register is designed for use with 2-inch pipes. When a Model 170 register is installed on a 1½-inch meter, it records water usage inaccurately, either faster or slower than actual usage.

The city is calculating how much each of the 637 affected customers may have overpaid. Officials are comparing average usage before the faulty meters were installed against recorded usage and crediting customers the difference. "If a customer closes their account, it's going to be near impossible to do that," Macchi said.

On the second page of a Houston water bill, the city lists the size of the meter connected to the home. Meter sizes are listed as 5/8 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch, 1½ inch or 2 inch. If a bill shows a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch meter, the expected register is a Badger Model 25.