Anyone use or install a Flume2 water monitor recently ...

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JoyfulNoise

JoyfulNoise

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May 23, 2015
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Tucson, AZ
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Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
... asking for a friend .... ok, not really. As the title explicitly asks - anyone?

I've had some water issues lately that have cost me a bundle and could have been averted with a simple notification system. Also, my water utility sucks in terms of any kind of feedback from their meter (you can get your usage data at the end of the month when the bill is due and after there's nothing you can do about it .... thanks a lot). The Flume looks like it's an easy hook up to a standard residential meter. Just wondering if anyone has some real world feedback aside from all the useless reviews on Amazon.
 
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I am with you. I have a little siren that sounds off when water goes in the pan of the water heater. Bought it at HD. It saved us several years ago when it alerted us and sure enough, we had leaking water heater. Had a crew out that same night to change out. Thanks for the reminder - I need to verify the battery in it is still good.

I have looked at this flume product as well so will be interested in feedback that is received from others.
 
Mine was a toilet bowl with a flapper valve that was no longer sealing properly. It wasn't a bad enough leak to keep the tank from filling but would allow enough water through for the fill valve to run. It's a side bathroom that gets little traffic and the kids use it. Well, the youngest little guy did a rapid flush and unseated the warped flapper enough so that the tank was filled up but enough water was getting through to let the fill valve run. I found a wet toilet seat back the next day from all the flowing water. That was couple of CCF's straight into the sewer and it caused my water softener to regenerate. YAY!!!

There were also several gardening incidents where the soaker hose was left on too long.

Anyway, no crushing water bills but some very high nuisance ones that easily cost me more than a Flume or two ...
 
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We use a flume meter and have for about 2yrs. The good: it will alert when you have excess water use like when some highly intelligent human hit the irrigation feed to the lower part of our lot and left. I was notified that water had been running at 15gpm for 15+ minutes. Flume has caught a couple of these types of leaks that I am thankful for.
The bad: We installed a multizone drip irrigation system last yr that runs for about 8 hrs total, flume picks this up as a leak. Also now that we have our pool online with autofill, flume picks up the autofill as a leak. I may end up installing an irrigation valve on the autofill line so that it only runs certain times of the day so that I can ignore those notifications.
I have also had issue with battery longevity. The batteries in our application only last about 6 months and are @$20 a pop to replace (although inside the pack is just 4 energizer lithium aa's 😉)
The last issue I have is with the elastic strap, our first one broke at @18mo and while a spare was included, I'm not sure what I'll do when this one breaks.
 
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Ahultin said:
We use a flume meter and have for about 2yrs. The good: it will alert when you have excess water use like when some highly intelligent human hit the irrigation feed to the lower part of our lot and left. I was notified that water had been running at 15gpm for 15+ minutes. Flume has caught a couple of these types of leaks that I am thankful for.
The bad: We installed a multizone drip irrigation system last yr that runs for about 8 hrs total, flume picks this up as a leak. Also now that we have our pool online with autofill, flume picks up the autofill as a leak. I may end up installing an irrigation valve on the autofill line so that it only runs certain times of the day so that I can ignore those notifications.
I have also had issue with battery longevity. The batteries in our application only last about 6 months and are @$20 a pop to replace (although inside the pack is just 4 energizer lithium aa's 😉)
The last issue I have is with the elastic strap, our first one broke at @18mo and while a spare was included, I'm not sure what I'll do when this one breaks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback.

I was hoping that with certain types of notifications you could tag them as known so they don’t show up. I’ll have to look at the software some more.

The current version of the unit is the “Flume2” … is yours a “2” ? Wondering if they changed anything 🤔
 
Yes, ours is a 2. Unfortunately it's not smart enough to tag certain events so you don't get notifications. It's all or nothing. Flume vs flume 2 adds better rf range, a different latch and the ability to add a second battery to the meter side sensor for longer life.
 
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I have been considering the Power X monitors since they were on Kickstarter. Home Energy Monitoring - Smart Home Solutions - PowerX Technology

I don't like the flume having to be installed on the meter. I am the same as both of you and have a long run to my meter, about 150' or so. I really like the idea of the Moen flo smart or the Phyn plus, which include auto shutoff features, in case you were to have a leak or a burst pipe while you aren't home. But I could do the Power X monitor for monitoring, and add a Z-wave shutoff valve that I could control from my smart home app.

--Jeff
 
Turbo1Ton said:
I have been considering the Power X monitors since they were on Kickstarter. Home Energy Monitoring - Smart Home Solutions - PowerX Technology

I don't like the flume having to be installed on the meter. I am the same as both of you and have a long run to my meter, about 150' or so. I really like the idea of the Moen flo smart or the Phyn plus, which include auto shutoff features, in case you were to have a leak or a burst pipe while you aren't home. But I could do the Power X monitor for monitoring, and add a Z-wave shutoff valve that I could control from my smart home app.

--Jeff
Click to expand...
For electricity tracking I use a Sense energy monitor. I like the analytics it provides as well as the ability to show solar production vs use . I will say that the ai leaves something to be desired as far as device detection. After almost 45 days it has still not detected my pool pumps (so they get bulked into other)
 

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I guess what I like about the Flume setup is that there is literally no plumbing work. You just attach the device to the side of the meter. All the other systems appear to require a plumbing installation.
 
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Turbo1Ton said:
Moen and Phyn require plumbing work, but the Power X works like the Flume, only you can install it in the house on the main line coming in, and not out at the meter. Down side is if you don't have clear access to the main line I suppose.

Install instructions here... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...erX-Water-Installation-Guide.pdf?v=1634047652

--Jeff
Click to expand...

My main line into the house is outdoor. Do you know if the PowerX are outdoor rated (rain, sun, heat, etc)?
 
Looks like the Power X Water is only indoor rated. No IP ratings on it. So that's another down side. It works for me since my main line is in my garage in my mechanical nook.

--Jeff
 
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Turbo1Ton said:
Looks like the Power X Water is only indoor rated. No IP ratings on it. So that's another down side. It works for me since my main line is in my garage in my mechanical nook.

--Jeff
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Bummer. I was thinking I could set up 3 of them - one on the main to the house, one on the main to the casita (it has a separate T off the line from the street to the house) and one on my softener line running to the pool. The softener/auto fill line is in the garage but the other two are both outside ….
 
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The leak alerts from flume due to the autofill are getting old. I have available relays in the intellicenter, would it be possible to use one to activate a sprinkler valve that I could time to be ignored by flume?
 
You can but I would be cautious about what type of valve you are installing.

Read this post by @Dirk here... Automatic Fill/Level Monitoring

A standard sprinkler valve is not designed to have pressure on the downstream side of it. I don't know any of this firsthand, just what I've read on here.

--Jeff
 
Ahultin said:
The leak alerts from flume due to the autofill are getting old. I have available relays in the intellicenter, would it be possible to use one to activate a sprinkler valve that I could time to be ignored by flume?
Click to expand...
Regarding the caution I wrote about in the post that Jeff referred to, my warning about the incorrect use of a sprinkler valve (when there is a second valve downstream of it) only has to do with using one for backflow prevention. If your intended use has nothing to do with backflow prevention, just for on-off operation, then my caution doesn't really matter. But in that case, you're better off using a solenoid valve that has no anti-siphon component, so that there is nothing to fail due to the constant pressure issue, something like this:

 
Dirk said:
Regarding the caution I wrote about in the post that Jeff referred to, my warning about the incorrect use of a sprinkler valve (when there is a second valve downstream of it) only has to do with using one for backflow prevention. If your intended use has nothing to do with backflow prevention, just for on-off operation, then my caution doesn't really matter. But in that case, you're better off using a solenoid valve that has no anti-siphon component, so that there is nothing to fail due to the constant pressure issue, something like this:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hunter-1-in-Plastic-Electric-Inline-Irrigation-Valve/1000089001
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification Dirk. I admittedly didn't re-read that entire thread to determine what exactly was going on.

--Jeff
 

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