The results are in from our most recent customer survey and they confirm that the BWL continues to be one of the top-rated electric utilities in the nation in customer satisfaction.

Our survey is taken twice a year by Market Strategies, Inc., a Detroit-area firm that regularly conducts surveys for electric and gas utilities all over the country. Overall, 87 percent of our electric customers and 80 percent of our water customers said they were satisfied with the BWL as their utility.

Eighty-five percent of our customers said the BWL has reasonable electric rates, a whopping 25 percent above the average utility score. More than 90 percent of our electric and water customers gave us high marks for service reliability. Eighty-three percent gave our employees positive marks for showing concern and caring towards our customers and 88 percent said it's easy to do business with us.

We appreciate the showing of confidence and pledge we'll continue to work even harder to earn and keep your support.

Our survey consists of telephone interviews with 400 residential customers chosen at random and has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percent.

It's an old phrase, but still true: We often don't appreciate something until we're without it.

So it is with electricity. We don't think much about it when we have it. Fortunately, that covers more than 99 percent of the time. But a power outage means massive inconvenience to our customers. For some, like those who depend on life-support equipment, the consequences can be far more serious.

One of our goals is to ensure our customers an uninterrupted supply of electricity. One of the most important ways we do that is by keeping trees and power lines away from each other.

Preventive maintenance is the key to a good program. Our tree maintenance crews routinely patrol some 900 miles of overhead power lines on our system, trimming or removing trees that pose a threat.

Our tree maintenance workers are professionals and follow accepted tree-trimming practices. Keeping our lines clear from tree limbs and other obstacles is a full-time challenge and we depend on you to support our efforts. The BWL will notify you when maintenance work is planned in your neighborhood or along your property line. We'll try to reach you personally, but if you're not home, we'll leave a tag on your door, letting you know we're working in your neighborhood.

A reminder to our customers that new rates take effect this month for our water and electric utilities.

We're entering the second year of a three-year rate adjustment approved by our Board of Commissioners in 2000. Starting January 1 our average residential electric customer consuming 575 kilowatt-hours (KWH) of electricity per month will pay an additional $1.66 per month, or a total of $38.81 per month. The average water customer consuming about 5,200 gallons of water per month will notice an increase of 98 cents in their monthly bill, for a total of $18.13 per month.

Click here for our ELECTRIC RATES

Click here for our WATER RATES

Click here for our STEAM RATES

If you find yourself without electricity, you can reach the BWL quickly and easily by using our PowerLine number.

Call us toll free at 1-877-BWL-5001. Chances are you'll never get a busy signal because our PowerLine number is able to process up to 40,000 calls per hour.

Here's the catch: PowerLine uses your phone number to automatically determine your address, so if we don't have your current phone number, the system won't work perfectly. Check your current bill. If your correct phone number isn't printed on the bill, please write it down in the space provided on your payment stub and return it with your payment.

With last fall's mild temperatures behind us, we're sure to experience some cold weather, and that reminds us to remind you about some simple precautions you can take to keep your water pipes from freezing:

• Inspect and protect pipes that run along outside walls, above the ceiling or behind paneling in finished basements.
• Replace broken basement windows and cover them with plastic for extra protection.
• Keep your basement adequately heated.
• Make sure any crawl spaces are weather-tight and heated enough to keep pipes from freezing.  You should also consider wrapping your water pipes with heat tape covered with insulation.

One last word of advice: Don't try to thaw frozen pipes with an open-flame torch. A hair dryer will be just as efficient and a lot safer.