Flow Meter - anyone use them

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EminiTrader

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Mar 20, 2015
67
Jacksonville, FL
Has anyone used a flow meter attached to their garden hose to get a more accurate fill reading? I searched my water meter and I can not find a counter on it. My pool builder said my pool will be 15K gallons but I would like to accurately measure it when I fill it. I was looking at something like this:

Lead Free Water Meters - WM-NLC Series by Flows.com

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with these or any recommendations.

Thanks!
 
I have, and I also advise people here how to figure it out with their own built-in water meter.

I purchased several meters from that same company, they're working fine so far. Service and support from them was good.

Is this a one-off use? Get this one, instead, half the money, plenty accurate:

Plastic Water Meters - WM-PC Series by Flows.com

I used a similar one, on a hose, to get my volume, but it now lives in a fourplex. If I hadn't needed to use it elsewhere I would have plumbed it into my autofill system so I could keep track of water usage (evaporation rate, etc). So it could have life after this one-off use.

Frankly, if I had to do it over again, I'd spend $55 to know my pool's volume, even if I didn't have another need for it. I find knowing the exact(ish) volume very useful. I think it's money well spent.

Interesting about your "dial-less" water meter. Are you sure it doesn't have a lid that is covering the numbers? Or it's possible it is the type that is read wirelessly, but that would be unusual for a residence.

Call the water company and verify it doesn't have a "face" before you buy your own meter.

I had a fantasy idea about TFP members that would buy and sell the same meter, over and over, on the honor system, for the same price, and just keep reselling it to the next member filling their pool, and then pass it on to the next person, etc. A whole flock of people would use it, at virtually no expense, for years to come. Hey, you could be the first one! ;)
 
Dirk: yeah i called the water company the lady had zero clue. Said someone would call me. I agree that it's well worth the money spent to know precise numbers. I will order the one you sent over right now :) Thanks Dirk!

PS - I would be happy to sell this or use a "pool" of people that want to use it. We do that in aviation. Instrumentation is quite expensive and 4 of use pitched in to buy a certain instrument and we use it as a spare while ours is being rebuilt. Never had to use it but it's a good way to help out like minded people!

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Dirk - do you know the average size of a hose bib? I just measured and it seems to be less than 1 inch
 
EminiTrader said:
Dirk: yeah i called the water company the lady had zero clue. Said someone would call me. I agree that it's well worth the money spent to know precise numbers. I will order the one you sent over right now :) Thanks Dirk!

PS - I would be happy to sell this or use a "pool" of people that want to use it. We do that in aviation. Instrumentation is quite expensive and 4 of use pitched in to buy a certain instrument and we use it as a spare while ours is being rebuilt. Never had to use it but it's a good way to help out like minded people!

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Dirk - do you know the average size of a hose bib? I just measured and it seems to be less than 1 inch
Click to expand...

Hose bibs are usually 1/2" or 3/4". The meters come in sizes, too. 3/4" is about $15 more, I think. Depends on how fast you need to fill your pool. Might have more to do with the hose(s) though, than the meter.

3/4" is not 50% more than 1/2". It's more like twice as much flow. I'm still learning hydraulics, but I thought I've read that a single pinch point doesn't govern flow, but rather the water will speed up through it. It's more about the diameter of the entire run. So if you had three setups:

A: 1/2" hose to 1/2" meter
B: 3/4" hose to 1/2" meter
C: 3/4" hose to 3/4" meter

The GPM of B would be closer to C than to A.

Point is, no matter what meter you choose, the bigger the hose to it, or the more hoses to it, the better. You're going to need some PVC adapters to go from the hose to the meter. Lowe's would have 'em. But if you can stretch 2 or 3 hoses to the meter, then build an adapter that'll connect all three hoses to the meter. That's if you're in a hurry. If not, then don't worry about any of that. If it's hot out, though, don't dawdle. Plaster suffers in hot weather.

So don't worry about hose bib size. Run 1, 2, or 3 hoses to your new meter. Given this is new plaster, I'd use the 3/4" meter.

But, be sure you have some way to get the output of the meter down to the very deepest part of the pool without the water running down or splashing the side. That's really important. That's really important. You could use a hose on the exit side of the meter, but that will choke the flow if you have more than one hose coming in. I used my vacuum's big 1 1/2" hose, affixed to the end of the meter, then over the side to exit into the bottom of the deep end.

Whatever you do (I'm going to shout): ONCE YOU START THE FILL, DON'T STOP IT FOR ANY REASON!! If you halt a fill, you can leave a permanent ring at that level. So:

Fill from the very bottom, as fast as you can, in one continuous shot.

Take a photo of the meter before and after. It's easy to mix up the numbers. A photo doesn't forget. Mark where you want the fill to stop with a piece of tape. The rule of thumb is halfway up the opening of the skimmer. But it's deceptively hard to see where that is when there's water in the skimmer, because of the water's refraction. Best to mark half way (or wherever your PB tells you "full" is) with a piece of tape.

There... that'll keep you busy! ;)
 
Dirk - thanks for the well thought out reply. I do realize filling must be non stop.

I guess what I am unsure of is what you said about running multiple hoses and having PVC on the meter. I thought I installed the meter just under my water spigot outside and then connected a normal hose to that and then dropped the hose in the pool and put like a sock or something around the end of the hose. Is this not correct?
 

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Perfectly fine to do it that way. But your flow rate will be determined by the hose (bib and meter, too, but primarily by that run of hose, which is typically 1/2" or 5/8"). If you had two or more hoses running into the meter, and a big vacuum hose (1.5" diameter) coming out of it, then you'd get a bit better flow and the pool would fill a bit faster. I described the meter at the end of garden hoses only because I was picturing the setup in my yard, and the pool vac hose wouldn't be long enough to get from my hose bibs to my pool.

This is all why I eventually stopped trying to "sell" the dedicated meter trick, and modified the tip to use the house's built-in water meter. It's not as accurate if you're in the house using water, but it doesn't require any purchase, or adapters, etc, and allows the use of every hose and hose bib you can put to the task.

Several ways to do the same thing. This is a case where close enough is close enough.
 
so we should be filling our pool this saturday and the PB does not use any meters, so I was thinking of getting one myself.

Anything wrong with these super cheap digital ones from Amazon? Has anybody used them yet? We have two separate hose bibs, so I will need to get two of them.
https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-56854-Hose-Water-Meter/dp/B0187BOFD6

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSNPMBS/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B06XSNPMBS&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=1713835751726239774&pf_rd_r=NFJVZFKHTFFZ60RN9GEM&pd_rd_wg=Z1RI3&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&pd_rd_w=sntsF&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pd_rd_r=33e18765-89ee-11e8-8042-83a887e2fe6a


I would afterwards like to install both of them permanently, one into the auto-fill line and the other one into the feed of my irrigation system. Should I get a better quality one since I plan to do a permanent installation? This one looks like it would last ...

https://www.amazon.com/DAE-AS200U-75-Potable-Measuring-Couplings/dp/B06XJZSWQ2/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_86_tr_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6ACPD85KHJZX1GWP6FP0
 
From Amazon's page of one of your meters:

This meter is extremely accurate, it measures water usage to the 1/10 of a gallon.
Click to expand...

That's weird wording, but sounds a lot like 10% accuracy. I think they meant it measures in increments of 1/10 of a gallon, but that doesn't speak to its actual accuracy. Anyway, you need to know the spec'd accuracy of the device to make a good decision.

The meter I recommended above is "+/- 1.5%" according to the manufacturer. That's good enough for pool testing and dosing. And typical of street meters.

Don't buy any meter that doesn't offer this spec.

Personally, I wouldn't use either of your first two links to measure a 15K pool, nor in a permanent installation.

The third link looks to be of much better quality and accuracy, but I only have experience with Flows.com products, chosen off the 'net only for capability and price, no other criteria or credentials were considered or researched. Four of them have been in service for about nine months, so far so good.

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By the way, you can measure the fill volume quite easily, without buying anything, if your house has a meter on its water supply line (typically out by the street somewhere). This method has a few pitfalls, but has the advantage of being able to utilize every hose you can bring to bear, which can speed up the fill process, which is good for several reasons... I can elaborate if you haven't already found where I describe this, ad nauseam, in many other threads...
 
Oh I guess I should look at the water meter from the city. Do you have a link to the other post you are mentioning?

I guess a couple of showers and toilet flushes won't throw the total off by more than a few hundred gallins and we don't have any irrigation in yet...
 
You've already got the gist of it. Take a picture of the meter before and after the fill (keeps better track of the numbers). Limit water use inside the house (no laundry or dishwasher). You can count showers and toilet flushes if you're really into it, subtract them later, but you've already figured out: a few hundred gallons won't matter much. Put a reliable piece of tape half way up the skimmer opening (or wherever your PB determines "full" to be). Trying to figure that out is harder than you'd think when water is in the skimmer (reflections, refraction, might be middle of the night). Here's a possible glitch of this method: be sure your PB and his crew are informed of what you want to do. Sometimes they'll just start a fill without you knowing about it. Then you come out to the pool and find a large puddle already in it!

Circle back and let us know how far apart the PB's number is from yours!
 
Thanks I will report back. What's the purpose of the tape? Just to know when to shut the water off? We have 1x2 waterline tile so I was waiting for the first three to be covered and still see the remaining three. Or was the tape for a different purpose?
 
rhawke said:
Thanks I will report back. What's the purpose of the tape? Just to know when to shut the water off? We have 1x2 waterline tile so I was waiting for the first three to be covered and still see the remaining three. Or was the tape for a different purpose?
Click to expand...

No, you got it. Just an easy-to-see reference of where to stop.
 
I just turned the water off 30 minutes ago. The meter difference was approx 14,350 but I saw that after they told me they would start to fill it and put the hose in the pool they still used another hose to rinse of the deck for another 15 minutes. Plus 2 days of showers and toilets with 2 loads of laundry and then we had some very hot weather and higher winds than usual, so I'm sure some evaporation happened throughout the course of the fill. So overall I think I can round down to 14,000 gallons?
 
Sounds about right. You could calculate all that extra use pretty close. Even the evaporation. There are several ways to do it, if you're interested, but you're very likely close enough. You can also confirm like so:

At some point, after the PB has turned the pool over to you, measure your FC after dark. Using PoolMath, dose your pool with enough chlorine to raise the FC level 2ppm (or one, or three, whatever). Circulate for an hour. Measure your FC again. If it's 2ppm higher (or whatever you dosed), than you know the 14K on which you based your Pool Math calculations is correct. Repeat a few times on other nights. Maybe with pH, too. If using Pool Math gets you expected results, then your volume number is good. After all, it doesn't really matter what your pool's volume is, it only matters that when you add X amount of a pool chemical, you'll get the expected result, in ppm, in your pool...
 

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