ELEMENT:
Water meters
AIM:
The aim of the water use monitoring program is to identify areas of potential
water savings, and investigate areas where non-potable water can be substituted
for potable water, for example in toilet flushing and garden irrigation.
STRATEGY:
The water management strategy of the Healthy Home incorporates rainwater
tanks to reduce its demand for external reticulated mains water. However,
mains water is still required for times of low rainfall.
A number of water meters have been placed around the Healthy Home to
monitor the the water used in various locations around the home to measure
the effectiveness of the water management strategy. There is a water meter
at the front fence, like those used in all Gold Coast homes, one attached
to the 22kL tank located under the house and a series of meters, sixteen
in total, on water pipes about the house.
The set of distributed meters is in place to assist in identifying internal
household water use patterns; indoor versus outdoor use, hot water consumption
compared to cold water, and the location of maximum water use; toilet,
laundry, kitchen or bathroom. There are two types of meters, electro-mechanical
registers and digital flow meters which send data back to the CR10X dataloggers.
The water meters attached to the rainwater tank and the mains trickle
top-up system have been used to show the proportion of household demand
met by rainwater, as opposed to reticulated mains water. Even in dry years
of little rain, it was found that the Healthy Home was able to source
almost one third of its water from rainfall.
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