Water Usage

[kukblue1]

Well I'm going to have to break down and turn on my sprinkler system. I know I can probably add a water usage meter but does the city offer smart meters like OG&E does for electric. It's nice keeping track of my electric bill it would be nice to track water bill also.

[Midtowner]

I'm not sure how much it'd help, but I have a Rachio controller, and on the app it keeps track of usage. So if you know how much water is used in each zone, you could probably figure out your usage.

[kukblue1]

I'm not sure how much it'd help, but I have a Rachio controller, and on the app it keeps track of usage. So if you know how much water is used in each zone, you could probably figure out your usage.

I have hydrawise and I could have someone put a smart meter on it just would be nice if the city had something like OG&E has.

[securityinfo]

I have been using a Flume device for a couple of years. It took them a time or two to get me a unit that did not eat batteries, but I am very satisfied with it now. Not only does it keep track of gallons of use per unit of time, it provides me with alerts when usage exceeds a set threshold. If I am not at home and I get an alert, I can be fairly certain there is a issue that needs to be addressed. It is dirt simple to install ( you have to take off the cover to the water meter and strap the unit around it neatly) but beyond a simple connection to a wi-fi bridge, that's about it. I know for example exactly how much each of the zones use during watering, and can also tell how much my washing machine uses during a wash (assuming there are no other things consuming water at the same time).

[kukblue1]

I have been using a Flume device for a couple of years. It took them a time or two to get me a unit that did not eat batteries, but I am very satisfied with it now. Not only does it keep track of gallons of use per unit of time, it provides me with alerts when usage exceeds a set threshold. If I am not at home and I get an alert, I can be fairly certain there is a issue that needs to be addressed. It is dirt simple to install ( you have to take off the cover to the water meter and strap the unit around it neatly) but beyond a simple connection to a wi-fi bridge, that's about it. I know for example exactly how much each of the zones use during watering, and can also tell how much my washing machine uses during a wash (assuming there are no other things consuming water at the same time).

That looks awesome. How does it work? Based off of vibration. Does it mess with the city reading the meter in anyway?

[securityinfo]

I assume it can monitor the flow through an inferential process of diameter of the line it is wrapped around. It seems pretty accurate though. It can take a minute or so to begin to update the app on the phone, it is not "real time" in that sense.

Funny, I wrote this last night, and after many months of "set it and forget it" it seems go have gone stupid on me. Could just be the wifi.. sometimes you just have to power cycle the wifi bridge.

[gjl]

I just got my water bill. I used 14K gallons. My normal usage is 7-8K gallons.

[kukblue1]

I just got my water bill. I used 14K gallons. My normal usage is 7-8K gallons.

I used 16 gallons watering 10 days of the billing cycle. extra $50 than normal so not too bad cheaper than planting new grass but that was only 10 days out of a possible 15 days to water Hope for rain

[gjl]

My normal 7-8K gallons is with zero lawn watering. I usually don't water at all because I have a 1 acre property and we usually get enough rain to keep it somewhat green and not worry about it dieing. There have been years I hope for less rain because instead oh having to mow this much grass every 5-6 days I can stretch it out to 10 days-two weeks. I have a well for outdoor use that has had a bad pump for several years. This summer made be get off my but and put a new pump in. The well has been working now for about a week so I should go back to normal city water usage if the drought continues. This year the grass really started looking almost like winter time so I thought I better water it.