Whether it’s from evaporation, filter backwashing, or splash out, commercial swimming pools lose water constantly. It is not difficult to set up water loss tracking in the form of a flow meter and controller to monitor it.
The How
Most commercial bodies of water use an autofill system. As the water level drops, it triggers a float or other sensor that will activate a valve to add fresh water as needed. That sensor may be mounted in skimmers, surge tanks, or elsewhere. If the body of water is lacking this, it is strongly recommended that an autofill system be added to prevent pumps from losing prime and other risks.
By adding a flow meter to the freshwater fill pipe, the fresh water added can be logged. This flow meter is wired to a chemistry controller. Each time fresh water is added, it will be recorded by the flow meter.
Not at all chemistry controllers will be compatible with all flow meters, and many of the more budget friendly controllers will not have this capability at all. Your mileage may vary.
Note that there are many ways to achieve water usage monitoring, but this is one of the easiest ways.
The Why
- Water loss has a cost associated with it. By knowing how much water you’re losing, a dollar amount can be attached to that.
- Leak or other anomaly detection: If a pool normally loses 100 gallons a day, but suddenly it’s losing 500 gallons a day, this method could detect such irregular water loss early, allowing corrective action sooner.
- Many drought prone parts of the world would benefit from being able to monitor total water usage.
Once tracked, it can be monitored. What we do at TMI is use our in-house developed app zLOG® (poolzlog.com/webinar) to set up automatic monitoring of items just like this. Imagine being able to graph water usage, or have notifications sent out if it reaches a certain threshold.
By continually monitoring water usage, you can be in better control of aquatics, both from an operational and financial perspective.
If you’d like further information or advice on how to set up your own water usage monitoring system, please contact TMI technical assistance at tech@tmiaquatics.com.
You might also like:
Comments
This is such a useful approach for managing pool maintenance! How often should the flow meter and autofill system be checked or calibrated to ensure they’re working accurately? And do you have any tips for troubleshooting if the readings seem off? Thanks for sharing!