“The best water meter is not the largest one. It is the one precisely matched to the way water is actually used, capturing the smallest trickle while comfortably handling the greatest demand.” – MJ Martin
Start With Demand, Not Pipe Size
For a new Canadian home or small business, selecting the correct water meter is fundamentally a hydraulic engineering exercise. At Metercor, the objective is not simply to install the largest meter that will fit the service. The goal is to select the smallest meter capable of reliably handling the property’s probable peak demand while maintaining excellent accuracy at normal and very low flows.
Think of a water meter like the transmission in a vehicle. Installing a transmission designed for a transport truck in a family car would not make the car perform better. Similarly, unnecessarily over-sizing a water meter can move normal household consumption toward the lower end of the meter’s operating range.
Determine Probable Peak Flow
The starting point is the building’s expected peak flow rate, usually expressed in litres per minute or cubic metres per hour.
Canadian plumbing design traditionally considers the number and type of fixtures, including toilets, showers, sinks, dishwashers, washing machines, hose connections and other water-consuming devices. Commercial buildings may also have kitchens, irrigation, wash-down equipment, process loads or specialized fixtures.
Importantly, these fixtures will rarely operate simultaneously. The design therefore converts the total connected fixture load into a probable simultaneous demand. It is much like designing a highway. We do not assume every resident of a city will enter the highway at exactly the same moment, but we must accommodate a realistic rush-hour peak.
Applying Badger Meter Technology
Metercor can apply these demand characteristics to the operating envelope of the selected meter. The Badger Meter E-Series G2 ultrasonic family provides a useful example.
For residential and light-commercial applications, Badger offers E-Series G2 meters from 15 mm through 40 mm. The 15 mm meter has a published flow range beginning at only 0.009 m³/h and extending to 6.8 m³/h, approximately 30 US gpm. A 20 mm meter extends to 7.9 m³/h, while the 25 mm model reaches 14.1 m³/h. (Badger Meter)
This exceptionally broad operating range illustrates why service-pipe diameter and meter diameter do not necessarily have to be identical.
Badger reports sustained accuracy of ±1.5 percent through the normal operating range and ±3 percent through the extended low-flow range. Because the E-Series G2 uses ultrasonic solid-state measurement with no moving measuring components, it is particularly effective at capturing small flows that might otherwise be difficult to measure. (Badger Meter)
Pressure Loss Still Matters
Flow capacity is only half the calculation. Available municipal pressure, building elevation, service-line length, pipe diameter, valves, fittings and backflow prevention devices all consume pressure.
The designer must therefore verify that sufficient pressure remains at the most hydraulically disadvantaged fixture during peak demand. A meter should never be deliberately undersized simply to improve low-flow measurement.
For larger commercial facilities, Badger’s commercial E-Series G2 meters extend from 50 mm through 200 mm, with published capacities ranging as high as 3,500 gpm depending upon meter size. (Badger Meter)
The Metrics That Matter
In practice, Metercor would consider fixture count, probable peak demand, normal flow, minimum expected flow, maximum flow, available pressure, acceptable pressure loss, service-line size, occupancy, building use, irrigation and specialized loads when evaluating meter selection.
Metercor has served Canadian utilities since 1997 and provides metering products, consultation and turnkey municipal metering solutions across Canada. (Metercor – Website coming soon!) The technology has changed enormously, but the fundamental sizing principle has not.
The best water meter is not the biggest meter.
It is the meter whose measurement range most closely matches the customer’s actual water-use profile.
That leaves some interesting questions for municipalities.
Are we still sizing meters according to plumbing assumptions developed for older mechanical technology?
Should a large modern home automatically receive a larger meter?
And as ultrasonic meters become capable of accurately detecting extremely small flows, should Canadian utilities reconsider traditional residential meter-sizing standards?
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.