Fouling and accuracy drift of water meters

In 1997, the Amsterdam City Council decided that water meters should be installed in every house connection. With this decision Amsterdam Water Supply (AWS) was faced with the challenge to install approximately 475,000 water meters and adapt its organisation to fulfil all customer services. Among the technical challenges was the selection of the type of meter to be used. Since AWS had only limited experience with water meters, a selection study was conducted. The main focus of this study was to estimate the life time, robustness, and accuracy drift of meters with different measuring principles. Several tests were conducted to estimate the meter's lifetime, but also fouling layers in the meter house and mechanism were examined. From the research it was concluded that meters based on a volumetric measurement were most accurate, and showed less susceptibility to fouling. Estimated lifetime of these meters was 10-12 years.