Bob Pierce answers questions about energy efficiency, consumer products, and cooperative governance. He is Clearwater Power’s Chief Operating Officer and welcomes your questions on our Ask Bob page.
Q: We are building an addition onto our house, but the addition will be right where the overhead power line comes into our meter. How do we handle this?
A: In this situation, you need to have one of our field engineers come out and see what the options are for relocating your service entrance. Depending on the option you go with, you may need to pay Clearwater Power to do some work, pay your electrician to do some work or a combination of both. Our engineer can help you select the best solution for you. There is a $100 engineering fee for this service and it would include a written quote for any CPC work necessary.
In all cases, we need to make sure that the meter is not enclosed in any way by the new construction so that CPC employees can access it to read and/or replace it.
Q: Do you have a Level Pay program?
A: Yes, our budget billing program is very popular. This program is available for members who have at least 12 months of on-time payments and usage history. The computer takes an average of the previous 12-months’ usage and rounds up to the nearest $10. So if your 12-month average was $138, you would be charged $140 per month, year-round on the budget billing program. Each month, the computer will reevaluate your monthly average. If the average changes enough, your budget billing number could change slightly. For example, if your average went from $138 to $146, then your budget payment would increase from $140 to $150.
Here are some of the payment options we offer:
- Budget Billing
- Paperless Billing
- Autopay
- Pre-Pay
- Online Payments with SmartHub
- 24-Hour Telephone Payments