Aquamonitor provides plumbers with an added-value to their service and allows consumers to accurately measure their water consumption. Jonathan Jackson speaks with Andrew Stewart about the need for a water monitoring device in a climate in which attitudes towards water conservation are changing rapidly.

Many Councils, Water Authorities and sustainability organisations are encouraging home and business owners to regularly read water meters to be informed of consumption behaviour.  This sounds easy but is practically difficult, involves time and diligence and often results in getting amongst dirt, mud and insects to access the meter. Once you have accessed the meter, it can be difficult to read (owing to the arrangement of various dials). Recording the reading then doing the maths (based on previous recordings) and entering the data for graphing or safe-keeping is time consuming and a hassle. And nobody really wants to do it.

This is why the Aquamonitor team wanted to create a product that could take the difficulty out of monitoring water usage.

“The initial concept was for a simple tank level monitor with a wireless indoor display,” says Aquamonitor owner Andrew Stewart. “That was in 2008 and many ideas followed from there, such as having the ability to measure tank consumption based on changes in the water level, and then total household water consumption from tanks and from a water meter. Other tank monitors on the market provided very little other than water level and there was no identified product that could be used to wirelessly monitor water meter consumption from inside houses.”

The Aquamonitor continually monitors the water meter every minute, updating the calculations, checking for abnormal conditions (e.g. leaks, taps left on) and storing the data internally for display or download.

The research and development was extensive and took over four years to complete. Part of the project was funded by the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage (the QSEIF programme) and development has been performed by three contract design organisations in Queensland: Microelectronic Systems (electronics); CMD Design and Innovation (Tank Sensor) and Display Unit and Formzoo Design (Mains Sensor). Recognition for the design was achieved in 2010 when the product won the Australian International Design Award – Building and Housing Category over competing entries from around the globe.

The Aquamonitor comprises an indoor Display Unit which is wireless and can be located in a kitchen or bathroom or any other room.

“One of our customers has it on his bedside drawers, another has it wall mounted (it can desk or wall mount) in a hallway so he can easily check,” Andrew says. “This unit is designed to suit modern homes and has a great design and polished appearance. The display also has a graphic display, as opposed to a display with fixed items on the screen. This means we can use the same screen, like a computer monitor, to show graphs, numbers and icons and not be limited to a fixed display. One of the screens is a single screen menu system that was inspired by a game console. It makes the display easy to set up because you don’t need to page though dozens of setup screens like you do with mobile phones. The display can be set-up to monitor a combination of one mains sensor (i.e. water meter) and up to three tanks. You can mix and match to suit your installation.

The unit stores hourly data for up to a year and can be downloaded to a csv file using free software. The display doesn’t need batteries and runs from a small plugpack (power adaptor) that is supplied with the package.”

A new model is due in early 2013 that will allow four meters to be connected to the display (no tanks) for small sub-metering applications such as laundries and other operations that use a few meters. This unit will allow one meter to be designated as a main meter and then up to three sub-meters can be connected.

A number of internal totalisers are used to record the consumption over different time periods: hourly, daily, weekly and quarterly.

“You can program in the number of users so that the display shows the consumption as a per-person figure, so you can directly compare with water restriction limits and normative usage,” Andrew says.

“For water meters there is a stopwatch feature that allows you to do timed tests of meter consumption. This can be used (not to the delight of) on teenagers in the shower, a great educational tool, and for testing/quantifying washing machines and dishwashers, different cycles etc to establish a consumption footprint within the house or business. Previously this would have taken a lot of running to and from a water meter to do this. The stopwatch mode also shows flow rate so you can check existing and new shower heads.”

Other features include alarms: leak alarm for meters and low level alarm for tanks; time use (e.g. leaving a tap on when filling a pool or watering) and daily limit (beep when I reach x-amount litres per person) alarms for both tanks and mains.

Due to a global focus on water conservation, Automatic Reading Technology has become a tool for the present and future. And while Automatic Meter Reading technologies have come a long way, they are used by authorities not consumers. Products such as Aquamonitor put the power of water consumption back in the hands of the consumers.

“What we are trying to achieve is to raise the awareness of water consumption within the household and within businesses,” Andrew says. “The adage is that you can’t manage what you don’t monitor.”

As for plumbers, the benefits depend on the end-user, but you can bet as smart meters are rolled out further, more and more plumbers will be asked to install or help monitor water usage and fix problems as soon as they arise.

“The benefit to plumbers amounts to giving an added value to their service offering and a more professional alternative to asking a customer to keep an eye on water meter readings.

“One plumber temporarily connected his own Aquamonitor to a customer’s meter where the customer was having issues. He would leave it for a few days then come back and look at the readings and graphs (there is a 7 day and a 24 hour graph),” Andrew says.

This allowed the plumber to illustrate the effectiveness of the monitor and the role the plumber could play in maintaining the plumbing.

In another example, in a small factory that had rainwater storage tanks and a mains meter, sensors were fitted to all by the plumber as a low cost alternative to more industrial types of sensors which often require an instrument fitter to specify, install and configure.

“A plumber could supply customers with an Aquamonitor with a small sticker saying in case of problems contact xxx plumbing and enable the leak detection alarm,” Andrew says.

 Plumbers receive a reseller discount so they make a margin on each sale.

The Aquamonitor is a low cost ($249 including GST) diagnostic tool that gives customers piece of mind.