upgrading from 'well water' to 'municipal water'

[ysualum]

The house we tore down had a well. When we rebuilt we connected to city water but kept the well. City said we should do what the county tells us, and the county told us to do what the city told us....so we kept it. Our well was old and producing a lot of iron (stains), so I have the well water just the backyard, and then connected city water to the frontyard/around the house so we don't stain all the concrete/brick. We got rid of our tank and iron filter , and now I have the Rain8Net trigger the well pump directly to turn on anytime one of its zones turns on. The well pump pushes the water directly out at the well.

We seeded in mid summer and needed to water daily, so our water bill was crazy last summer, at time 400/month. Winter bills are 50/month. So, I just added a second water meter for irrigation only. Costed 400 for the meter. I bartered services for the installation (around 1,000). In our area about 1/3 of the bill is sewer costs, so I hope to save at least 75-100/month in the summer months.

 

[pete_c]

I just have a separate sprinkler water meter which gives me counts to a 1-wire HB dual counter. I purchased another water meter and have it connected after the primary town water meter. In all have added two meters and using one 1-wire HB dual counter. The meters were under $200 each and I am not a pipe sweating wizard so had a friend put these in. He did a good job. I think I posted pictures of my setup some where on the forum.


I do the shutdown and startup every year myself using a palm pad outside. I still pay for the town's backflow inspection every year ($50).

Here are some pics -

 

[electron]

Which water meters did you get? That's the kind of info I am after

 

[pete_c]

More pics

 

[pete_c]

More pics - easier to if you just have the meter installed while the sprinkler company does the sprinkler installation.

DLJ water meters from:

DLJ Water Meters

The meters actually sat around for about 2 years before I installed them and so the price that I paid is from about 4-5 years ago. No problems with the two meters running now for the last couple of years. I also installed a pressure guage (in picture) and a supplimental water pump for the entire house. Typically in my area the water pressure was so low that the sprinkler companies were adding supplimental pumps to just the sprinkler system. When I first installed the sprinkler system my average water pressure was sitting at about 30 lbs. Today the average is about 35 lbs so I still need the pump on for 8 zones - 40 heads. The town also gets its water from local wells and its still very iron laden so watering stains all red (anything light colored). (thus need for iron extractor, softner and reverse osmosis - still a pita regarding maintenance considering that the costs of the town water has skyrocketed - really not getting much more than a well would provide to me)

 

[electron]

Hmm, I like the idea of installing a pressure gauge as well, will have to look into that.

Do you see anything wrong with the meter I posted: http://www.jerman.com/dljmeter.html

Trying to figure out what specs I should look out for.

 

[sda]

Generically, what you're looking for is a pulse count water meter with dry contacts. This should have a 2-wire cable coming from the face of the meter.

Meters either have a fixed or a configurable pulse rate. If the pulse rate is fixed, make sure to check the specs. 1GPP (gallon per pulse) is common and an easy pulse rate to work with.

Besides DLJ, other pulse count meters I've seen are Hayes and Seametrics.

You can use anything that reliably counts pulses to read the meter. A 1-wire counter works well for this since it will continue to count even if the host is offline. Data collection consists of reading the counter on a regular interval (once a minute) and logging the time and raw count. Do the display/summary/analysis of the raw data in a separate process.

 

[standon]

Whoa, very cool! I was just wondering if something like this existed.

Our water situation is that we have a well that holds about 1000 gallons on a normal day, but only puts out like half a stupid gallon a minute. Yes, .50 GPM. We're having water tanks installed and an irrigation system, and I wanted to keep track of water out because we really can't afford to go over what we can produce on a regular basis.

Looks like I need to do some research before the sprinkler and water people come. Anyone have experience with well water tanks and where I would put these if the tanks will provide water for both house use and irrigation?

 

[pete_c]

I only installed a water pressure meter cuz of the low pressure I saw here and to keep the whole house pump at a decent pressure but not too much. My meters are 1GPP (gallon per pulse).

 

[scorp133]

Where does the OP live that a well is illegal? Is this in the US?

I live in Grand Rapids Mi. Yes, in Kent county once you switch from well water to municipal you cannot change back. Sorry, I didn't mean to get your thread so off topic but such things are definately worth considering when making the switch. I had a very healthy spider plant that was decimated by watering from my tap, even through a carbon water filter. I switched to rain water and it is slowly nursing back to health.
Since you are working on your plumbing I thought I'd suggest adding to the project with a solar water heating system. I'm looking to start working on a DIY setup myself this year and control/monitor it with CQC.

 

[Michael McSharry]

The posted meter link is a good quality meter from Hackensack NJ. They are priced based upon market value rather than production cost so you will see a big price jump for the larger diameter meter and cost for the pulse count option. I, like Pete, have two meters. One for my house water and one for my irrigation. Well water source. The 1-wire counters are good if you are setup for 1-wire. Another option is the Rain8Net or Rain8UPB if you wish to use these interfaces to control your irrigation. If you are going to try to detect small leaks then you will need the 0.1 gallon/pulse version. You need to deal with detecting a toilet flush or hand washing vs. a leak. mcsSprinklers irrigation software manages water meter and leak detection logic, but the focus is more on broken irrigation lines than it is in a dripping faucet gasket.

 

[electron]

It looks like they will be putting in 3/4" (was hoping for 1"), I'd like to detect small leaks, but do not have a 1-wire network (yet). I was hoping for a simple NO/NC type contact so I can count with the Ocelot or Elk M1. Knowing this, what meter would you recommend?

 

[Michael McSharry]

The watermeters.com mulitjet 3/4" with 1 gal/count pulse (dry contact) had been selling for $99. I think you need to contat them to find the model with 0.1 gal/count. I do not recall the sampling rate of the ocelot, but seems to me it was 1 second (could be 1 millisecond). I'm just making the point that you need to do the math to make certain the pulse rate from the high resolution meter will not be too fast for the unit with which you are sampling. I know the DS2423 1-wire has a max spec of 50Hz.

 

[standon]

I was reading through this thread. I'm hoping to use it with Elk M1, still trying to figure out how things translate.

 

[electron]

The watermeters.com mulitjet 3/4" with 1 gal/count pulse (dry contact) had been selling for $99. I think you need to contat them to find the model with 0.1 gal/count. I do not recall the sampling rate of the ocelot, but seems to me it was 1 second (could be 1 millisecond). I'm just making the point that you need to do the math to make certain the pulse rate from the high resolution meter will not be too fast for the unit with which you are sampling. I know the DS2423 1-wire has a max spec of 50Hz.

I contacted them, and they said 1 gallon per click is the best they can do. Model # he recommended for me was the DLJ7575C. I really was hoping for finer resolution, any other suggestions?