Traditional water meters

“Traditional” meters use a mechanical system to measure water consumption and flow. The fluid enters a chamber where mechanisms rotate under the thrust of the water flow and transmit the movement to a mechanical clock, where numbered rollers indicate the amount of water flowing through the counter.

The technology for measuring water consumption has been purely mechanical for about 200 years. Until the advent of the smart meter, an innovation that revolutionized how flows are measured, the water meter saw no major technological revolutions, remaining similar in both types and mechanical parts.

The big difference is the materials and structural arrangements that translate into measurement accuracy, durability, and reliability over time. Even today, the traditional meter is still used all over the world even though electronic technology and the quest for sustainability of water resources is decreeing the success of new static meters.

WaterTech was founded as a company of excellence in water metering. Thanks to great quality in the field of mechanical meters, we sell millions of meters all over the world. High-performance products that meet and exceed the standards required by the stringent guidelines in water service delivery, consumption metering, and resource protection.

Traditional meters are mainly of two types: turbine or piston.

In turbine models there is a turbine inside the meter body that, rotating around a pivot, detects the speed of the water passing inside the meter. The speed of rotation is proportional to the water flow rate: the faster the turbine spins, the greater the volume of water flowing through. The revolution count is recorded by numbered rollers connected with a drive shaft that move by a clockwork mechanism.

There are two different types of turbine water meters: single-jet or multiple-jet. In the single-jet meter, water enters the metering chamber through a single conduit and impinges directly against the turbine – as the name implies.

In the multiple-jet meter, on the other hand, water enters the meter from the inlet conduit of the body and then reaches and impinges on the turbine through a meter assembly (also called a distributor), which divides that flow of water into many different jets.

One of the main advantages of turbine meters – both single and multi-jet – is that the meter continues to function even if sediment and impurities are present.

The other major family of mechanical-traditional meters is the rotating piston type. It has inside it a chamber with a known volume that, filled by the inlet hole, is driven by the very force of pressure to rotate until it opens an outlet hole that empties it.

In practice, this type of gauge is based on a piston that, driven by water, rotates cyclically and each complete rotation corresponds to a known volume. The rotations, in turn, cause the rollers that measure consumption to move. Piston meters, although very accurate, are little used because of the high sensitivity of these instruments to water quality, and they stop in the presence of solid particulate matter. Water flow halts and can only be restored by manual intervention, resulting in heavy inconvenience to the end customer.

WaterTech – boasting extensive experience in water and gas smart metering – offers highly advanced products that guarantee top performance in all 3 functionalities. Our smart meters boast unparalleled measurement accuracy, combined with maximum logging and transmission capabilities.

Rollers form the visible part of the measurement. Color and labels are established by law, so they are always the same on every mechanical meter. They can be:

• Wet: immersed in water, without separation from the measuring chamber.
• Dry: completely dry and separate from the measuring chamber.
• Protected: separated in an airtight chamber filled with a protective liquid.

Although it has all three types, WaterTech suggests the protected roller solution for its mechanical meters because – compared to wet ones – they are more durable and are not prone over time to loss of readability.

In comparison with dry ones, however, they have the advantage of not being manipulable or defraudable. Protection is provided by a sealed chamber inside the meter body filled with a special liquid. This expedient avoids using magnetic joints and ensures maximum readability throughout the life of the meter.

In all types of meters, quality is established by an R factor, which is given by the ratio of the permanent flow rate (Q₃) to the minimum flow rate (Q₁). Many mechanical turbine meters offered on the market exhibit a metrological performance of R160.

WaterTech – in its range of traditional turbine meters – boasts products as high as R400. These are the most accurate mechanical turbine meters in the world.

The portfolio of mechanical-traditional solutions offered is extremely broad, encompassing both piston, single-jet, and multi-jet meters (available in wet, dry, and protected roller variants). A complete and reliable offering, as all WaterTech meters guarantee unparalleled performance, stability of measurement over time, great strength, and robustness.

In addition to traditional meters – which have always been in our catalog – we also produce innovative ultrasonic water meters, such as SONATA and OCTAVE. They are the result of our collaboration with ARAD Group, of which we are a part.

Although ultrasonic meters certainly represent the future of metrology, static is not always the best solution. Different utilities, with different histories, needs, managed territories, utility types, and backgrounds may require equally dissimilar solutions. In certain situations, for specific uses, traditional meters may still be viable and useful solutions.

Moreover, rather than going for cheap but low-quality static meters (built with poor materials, too small battery size, low metrological capacity, etc.), it is wiser to choose high-quality mechanical meters, which are more solid, established, and stable.