Double Installation, Double Costs? The Quiet Death of Mechanical Water Meters 

Is the end near for mechanical water meters? With ultrasonic technology storming the market, the answer seems clear to us. These advanced water meters promise not only accuracy and reliability but also significant savings in both time and money, starting from installation at the construction site through remote data collection and accurate billing.  

How Water Meters Are Installed at Construction Sites 

It’s no secret that the submetering market in North America is largely driven by new constructions, adding significant volumes of new households and commercial spaces to the real estate market. Most of these require individual water metering. 

Typically, the process looks like this: when a building is constructed, the water distribution system is put in place. Then, plumbers come and cut pipes to create installation spaces for mechanical water meters according to the confirmed blueprints. However, they cannot install the meters just yet. Instead, they put empty spacers of the exact dimensions of the future water meters. Once that is done and the entire water distribution system is finished, it is “flushed” with a large amount of water. This procedure is necessary because physical interventions with the pipes leave particles and debris inside. These need to be eliminated from the system before it can be finished and given to the residents. 

After flushing the water, plumbers return to the construction site. They then remove the installed spacers and put the actual water meters in the prepared places. If this were done before flushing, debris would get stuck in the mechanical parts of the water meters and surely damage them, at best impacting their precision. 

Since labor costs are increasing every year, and this process of double installation (first spacers, later mechanical water meters) has to be done manually by skilled employees, it significantly contributes to the final cost of working water metering. Sometimes these procedures are carried out by the construction company, sometimes by the submetering company, and sometimes it’s a cooperation between both parties. Nevertheless, these are costs that must be covered by the final property owner in one form or another. 

More Than Just Price: The Hidden Costs of Water Metering 

The utility and submetering markets have differences. Utilities often carry out extensive research and ROI calculations and steadily make the shift with their large deployments. The submetering market, on the other hand, is much more dynamic and price-sensitive, often driven by the minimal requirements of local regulatory compliance with the final price playing a key role.  

Despite modern ultrasonic water meters being produced in highly automated factories in large quantities, they are still a bit more expensive than mechanical meters. Why? Because the development and integration of ultrasonic technology involve higher research and development costs compared to the simpler mechanical designs. Also because the components used in ultrasonic meters, such as ultrasonic transducers and electronic sensors, are typically more advanced and expensive than the mechanical parts used in traditional meters. These high-quality components contribute to the overall accuracy and durability of the meters and because of production complexity, calibration, testing, etc.  

However, it’s important to consider more than just the water meter prices. Water metering involves many components, which reveal the overall picture of pricing and maintenance that you will have to handle. 

When making decisions, you should consider: 

• Water meter technology and price; 
• Installer’s time and labor costs (including travel to the site); 
• Maintenance of the meters (durability); 
• Liability costs (property damage, defective meters, inaccurate billing, etc.); 
• Data collection (manual vs. remote data transfer); 
• Advanced functionalities to detect leaks, bursts, freezes, etc. (tools that save time, liability costs, and help companies work more sustainably). 

Analyzing the overall components and steps where the costs and employees time are spent there will be seen a significant threat to mechanical meters, signaling the coming end of an era. 

Precision Redefined: Ultrasonic Meters Surpass Mechanical Ones 

For decades, mechanical water meters have dominated the utility and submetering markets. The technology is relatively straightforward, and manufacturers have spent years perfecting it while keeping production costs as low as possible. 

While there are several types of mechanical meters, most suffer from the same issues: precision degradation over time due to wear and tear of mechanical parts, sensitivity to installation position, susceptibility to tampering, and low sensitivity, leading to undetected leaks. Additionally, mechanical meters require extra devices to transmit data to the user remotely (AMR to AMI transceivers). 

These known problems are solved by solid-state meters. Among the competing technologies, ultrasonic has emerged as the clear winner. It has proven to be the most accurate and accessible for mass production. Digitalization at the core of the measurement has allowed manufacturers to merge consumption monitoring with sophisticated algorithms, enabling the detection of issues like leaks, freezes, bursts, and backflows at the source. 

Ultrasonic flow meters are genuinely innovative devices with qualities like high accuracy, large measuring ranges, and low starting speeds (0.26 gallons/hour). They are long-lasting and dependable because they lack the moving parts found in mechanical meters. They are crucial for gradient billing and water resource management due to their capacity to resolve conventional water meter issues. Ultrasonic flow meters also satisfy the needs of contemporary communication networks like LoRaWAN, enhancing their adoption and application through extensive output communication capabilities. 

A Solution That Will Be More Widely Adopted in Water Metering 

Now, we arrive at the most crucial part of the evolution of water metering. Ultrasonic water meters require only one installation instead of two. If you look through an ultrasonic water meter, you can see it is just a hollow pipe. Measurements are done by ultrasound, which travels straight through the water in the pipe without obstructing the water flow. This means water meters can be installed right away and flushed without the risk of damaging any internal moving parts, as there are none. 

This represents a small revolution in submetering and might be the final nail in the coffin for outdated technology. Saving one installation procedure is a huge optimization and adds value in terms of both money and project timeline. There are hundreds of interconnected processes involved in new constructions, and delays in any of them can cause a cascade of issues leading to failed deadlines. Eliminating one of these processes is a blessing for construction companies, especially when it also means pure savings. 

Conclusion 

To fully utilize this benefit, it is crucial for submetering companies to understand the processes and value chain of their customers and get involved in the project as early as possible. Additionally, clients accustomed to the old ways need education on the new technologies and the savings they can offer. This change will happen one way or another, as more and more companies adopt this approach. 

Will this be the end of the mechanical meter? Time will show. We have no doubt that artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and other advanced technologies will have impact to the water metering in the future but for now the trend is clear, and it is hard to deny the solid arguments in favor of the new ultrasonic technology.