How to install a water meter in an apartment

Obviously, costs can be reduced by savings, but for this you need to keep a record of these same costs. According to the experts of the environmental organization Greenpeace Russia, the cost of electricity, heating and water consumption can really be reduced by 2 or more times if electricity, heat and water metering devices are introduced.

However, the Russian citizen is inert and difficult to stir up. The only thing he is used to is the electric meter. And our public utilities only benefit from it. Why install water and heat meters if everyone pays a certain amount every month, without wondering for what exactly?

As a result, without hesitation, we pour water that we could do without and open windows in hotly heated rooms, instead of installing temperature controllers on heating appliances. And our extravagance seems to be of little concern to the state - Russia has not yet created a legislative framework and economic incentives for the development of energy saving at the level of a private user.

Leaving political and economic disputes and calls to save the planet for future generations, let's try to find out what the installation of such a device as an apartment water meter gives the end user.

First, it disciplines. The first thing you have to start with is to eliminate all leaks and follow a simple rule: if you don’t use water, turn off the tap.

Secondly, reducing water consumption saves not only water, but also the energy required to heat it and supply it to the house. It may not be obvious, but it leads to significant savings in electricity, gas, and oil.

What do you need to install a water meter in your apartment?

Step 1: contact the housing management organization (usually DEZ) with an application for the installation of apartment water meters. At the same time, you should clarify whether house meters are installed in your house, since payment by the meter for cold water is possible only if they are available. The application is the basis for drawing up a draft Agreement between the organization managing the housing stock and the owner of the housing (or responsible tenant) on the procedure for paying for cold and hot water. At this stage, you should become familiar with your new rights and responsibilities.

Step 2: assess the state of engineering networks. Do they allow water meters to be installed? Sometimes, before installing metering devices, you should change, repair or install taps that shut off the water supply to the apartment.

Step 3: Do not rush to install the water meter yourself. First of all, check with DEZ what type of device is right for you. Do not rush to buy the device. According to the rules, a licensed organization must mount it, and it may not agree to install the copy you provided. Having determined the date and time with the company, invite a representative of DEZ to conclude a tripartite Act on the acceptance of water meters for operation. Be sure to find out how and with whom the issue of their maintenance and repair will be resolved.

Step 4: depending on the type of engineering networks, one or two pairs of water meters are installed in each apartment. In the vast majority of cases, two devices are required - for cold and hot water.

Step 5: conclude an agreement with the organization managing the housing stock on the procedure for paying for "cold water" and "water disposal" (in the receipt for payment), according to which the tenant and DEZ undertake certain obligations (for Muscovites they are spelled out in the resolution No. 77-PP).

Step 6: you conclude a separate agreement with the State Unitary Enterprise "Mosgorteplo" (or with similar organizations in other cities), which is responsible for heating water and receives money, which in the payment receipt passes as "hot water". To do this, you need to contact the office of the Mosgortepla branch that serves your area and declare your desire to pay for hot water according to the readings of the water meter. Within a few days, their representative should come to you, put an additional seal on the hot water meter and sign the contract. At the same time, it is necessary to discuss how to testify for “hot water”.

Step 7: Relevant if your housing management organization is not a DEZ. In this case, the contract with it must be brought to the Unified Information Settlement Center (EIRC). In addition to the contract, they may require additional documents (for example, copies of passports for water meters, an act of commissioning). The EIRC will register you and tell you how to submit instrument readings. Accounting for water consumption will be simplified by a special book for taking readings from water meters.

Types of water meters

Today, more than 500 registered and certified by the State Register of the Russian Federation names of water meters from various foreign and Russian manufacturers are represented on the domestic market. Diversity inevitably gives rise to traditional consumer questions: “What to choose?” and “Which device is better?” It is impossible to answer them unambiguously. In each specific situation, this is the search for the optimal combination of price, installation cost, maintenance, etc. for this particular case.

Tachometric (mechanical) water meters

In tachometric instruments, the flow directly, by means of mechanical pressure, acts on the blades of the impeller or turbine, causing them to rotate, which is transmitted by means of a gear train to a counting device that registers the amount of water consumed.

Depending on the design features, tachometric water meters are divided into single-jet, multi-jet and turbine. In single-jet and multi-jet, the plane of the blade of the impeller wheel in its lower position is perpendicular to the direction of flow. In turbines (Woltman meters) - at a smaller angle, just like in a classic turbine. Multi-jet differ from single-jet in that they divide the flow into several jets, which significantly reduces the error associated with flow turbulence. As a consequence, multi-jet meters are more accurate but cost more than single-jet meters.

Both multi-jet and single-jet water meters are also "dry" and "wet". In devices of the "wet" type, the counting device is in no way isolated from flowing water. These are the simplest, but quite effective and reliable metering devices. However, they do not work on dirty water. Counters of "dry" type are deprived of this shortcoming. In them, the counting mechanism is hermetically separated from the water by a non-magnetic partition, due to which deposits of suspended particles do not form on it. Readings are transmitted from a rotating impeller or turbine using a magnet attached to them. Such a device makes the meter suitable for accounting for water of any degree of pollution, but significantly increases its cost. Such a mechanism is rarely installed on single-jet meters - this deprives them of their main advantage - low cost.

A compromise solution is a "semi-dry" counter. Its peculiarity is that the counting mechanism is not separated from the water jet by a partition, the rotation of the impeller is transmitted to it by means of a gear, but water does not penetrate into it, which is achieved by filling the counting mechanism chamber with a viscous hydrophobic filler that does not mix with water and does not interfere with movement gears, but isolating them from water.

Combined instruments, as a rule, combine a conventional vane meter and a turbine meter placed on a parallel outlet. When the water pressure in the water supply system is low, the water moves through the impeller. With increasing pressure, the valve closes the pipeline with this meter, and water flows through the outlet through the turbine. In tachometric water meters with a pulse output, the readings of the counting mechanism are converted into an electrical signal and in a pulsed (digital) form can be transmitted and output to the final recording device, remote from the place of direct metering of water consumption by the consumer. With their help, unified computerized automatic control points are created, and it is likely that such water meters will become the most popular in the future for apartment-by-apartment water metering.

Hot water meters

To account for hot water in public utilities, the same types of flow meters are used as for cold water. Their main differences are the materials used for the manufacture of the impeller and bearings and a higher permissible error. If cold water meters are designed to operate at temperatures up to +40 degrees Celsius, then hot water meters - up to 150 (different manufacturers have different maximum temperatures). According to the requirements of the State Standard, the minimum service life of hot and cold water meters is 12 years, with two mandatory calibrations for cold water (inter-calibration period 5-6 years) and three for hot (inter-calibration period 4 years).

Electromagnetic (magnetic induction) water meters

The principle of operation of electromagnetic water meters is based on measuring the EMF of induction, which, according to Faraday's law, is induced in an electrically conductive liquid that moves in a magnetic field created by the device's electromagnet. This EMF is proportional to the flow rate and is converted by the electronic unit of the flowmeter into an electrical analog or digital signal displayed on the display of the device itself or transmitted to a controller or computer. It is obvious that such flow meters are much more expensive than mechanical ones and therefore are practically not used for apartment metering, and in public utilities they are used as house water meters. More often, such devices are used to measure water flows in the food, brewing, pharmaceutical industries, as well as for wastewater.

Volumetric flowmeters

Volumetric flowmeters are rare in Russia. In these devices, water under pressure is supplied to a chamber of a certain volume, which rotates, passing the same volume of water for each revolution. This rotation is communicated by means of a gear train to a meter registering the amount of water consumed. In the UK, water utilities favor volumetric water meters as their primary flow measurement instrument. They are also used in special systems of industrial buildings and laboratories for monitoring very weak water flows.

Ultrasonic flow meters

The operation of an ultrasonic meter is based on measuring the difference in time spent on the passage of an ultrasonic signal in the direction of fluid flow and in the opposite direction. To do this, two sensors are mounted on the pipeline, which emit an ultrasonic signal generated by a piezoelectric crystal in different directions. The signal sent in the direction of flow reaches the transducer located at the opposite end of the pipeline section first, and the flow velocity is calculated from the difference in the travel time of both signals. In the absence of flow, both signals reach the sensor at the same time. The recording device of the device can be mounted at a remote distance and equipped with a display. There are two types of ultrasonic flowmeters: one is mounted on the outer surface of the pipe (Clamp on), the other - mortise - is in contact with the working medium (Insertion). The first is used when working with aggressive liquids, for it there are no restrictions on pressure and temperature. Mounting on the outer surface of the pipe does not require a shutdown of the process. Flowmeters of the second type are popular for measuring fluid flows inside pipelines made of materials with low audio conductivity. As a rule, these devices have a modular architecture, which allows you to choose only the options you need, minimizing the cost. The main areas of application for ultrasonic flowmeters are industrial water and wastewater.

Vortex (vortex acoustic) flowmeters

When a flow of liquid or gas flows around an obstacle, turbulences arise that cause pressure drops on the surface of the streamlined body. The frequency of the drops is proportional to the flow velocity and the volume flow of the liquid or gas. The principle of operation of vortex flow meters is based on recording the number of pressure drops and converting them into an analog or digital electrical signal. They are used to account for the consumption of not only water and other low-viscosity liquids, but also steam and gases. Such devices are mainly intended for regulation and control of technological processes.

Household and industrial water meters

Depending on the scope of application, water meters are divided into domestic and industrial. The former are more common in apartments and private houses, the latter in industry and public utilities. This distinction depends on the size: water meters with a nominal diameter of 15-25 mm are used in everyday life, 25-400 mm is an industrial version. As house meters at the entrances to multi-storey buildings, Voltman turbine water meters or electromagnetic flow meters with a connecting diameter of 50-200 mm are usually installed. For apartment-by-apartment water metering, tachometric devices are mainly taken.

Models of household water meters

The meters measure the volume of network and drinking water flowing in the supply or return pipelines of closed and open heat supply systems, cold and hot water supply systems in the temperature range from 5 to 90 degrees Celsius at a pressure of not more than 1.0 MPa. The principle of operation of vane meters is based on measuring the number of revolutions of the impeller, rotating at a speed proportional to the flow rate of water flowing in the pipeline.

Structurally, the meters are made according to the “dry-running” scheme, when only a rotating impeller is in the water. The kinematic connection between the impeller and the counting mechanism is carried out by magnetic interaction through a sealed partition. Hour stones in the supports of the impeller and counting mechanism provide a long service life and high reliability of the device. The water meter belongs to multi-jet type devices, when water enters the impeller through the holes in the guide. This improves the accuracy of measurements, as well as the reliability of the water meter VSKM 90-15 has an indicator device with roller and pointer indicators showing the measured volume in cubic meters and its fractions. In addition, there are modifications with devices for remote signal pickup (pulse or optoelectronic output).

Siemens WFK / WFW cold and hot water meters are designed to measure the volume of water in cold and hot water supply systems of any type: from individual houses, apartments and offices to administrative buildings. These devices have a mechanical principle for measuring water flow. The flow indication is presented on a convenient reading scale.

All meters can be equipped with a pulse output to allow remote reading for resource accounting systems. The meter mechanism is protected against magnetic fields (anti-magnetic protection). Horizontal or vertical installation of the device is allowed, while it is not required to maintain a certain length of straight sections before and after the meter. The advantages of Siemens WFK/WFW include reliability, accuracy of water flow measurements, as well as resistance to high pressure in the water supply system, which ensures a long service life for the device. Separately, it is worth noting the functional design.

Water meters OSVKh-25 / OSVU-25 are designed to measure the volume of network and drinking water flowing in supply or return pipelines of closed and open heat supply systems, cold and hot water supply systems in the temperature range from 5 to 40 (for OSVKh-25) and from 5 to 90 (for OSVU-25) degrees Celsius at a pressure of not more than 1.0 MPa.

The principle of operation of vane meters is based on measuring the number of revolutions of the impeller, rotating at a speed proportional to the flow rate of water flowing in the pipeline. Structurally, the devices are made according to the “dry-running” scheme, when only a rotating impeller is in the water. The kinematic connection between the impeller and the counting mechanism is carried out by magnetic interaction through a sealed partition.

As a rule, almost any closet in the bathroom looks like this - two risers and wiring from them to all plumbing fixtures	To install water meters, you will need a set of fittings and a simple tool: wrenches, a grinder, etc.
To embed water meters, you need to "break" the pipes. We cut the pipes with a grinder	Before installation, you should try on a water meter with inlet pipes in place and determine which piece of pipe to cut
Be sure to seal the connectors. You can use fum-tape or flax with a special lubricant	It is desirable to install a strainer at the entrance to the meter. It will prevent dirt from entering the device.
The meter is mounted so that it is convenient to take readings	This is what the installed water meters look like
Be sure to make sure that a specialist from DEZ seals the water meters