Submetering Apartments
Sydney
The average water use for the building was 400 kilolitres a day minimum. Since we installed the meters, water usage has dropped by 100 kilolitres a day. At two dollars a kilolitre, that’s a saving of $200 a day.
Objective
With many apartment owners living overseas and using their apartments for only a short period, the building’s management wanted to find a fair and equitable method to allocate water costs.
Details
Miramar is located in the heart of Sydney’s CBD, it is a modern 38-storey apartment building with many facilities including swimming pool, gym, sauna and various sporting activities.
The building had no individual water meters and over time the quarterly water bills became a problem for apartment owners and residents.
Installing meters at each apartment often referred to as “sub-metering”, ensures a user-pays approach and provides an economic benefit to those tenants or owners, who are more frugal with their water consumption.
Installing automated meter reading technology on these sub-meters offers the ability to provide real-time data to consumers, allowing them to control their water and energy consumption.
Method
Taggle provided a radio-based automatic meter reading (AMR) system to measure both hot and cold water. The project used MRC-1 transmitters, fitted to Elster V100 meters for cold water and ADC-1 transmitters, fitted to meters for the hot water. The two receivers, installed on level 8 and level 22, can both read all meters.
Results
The building manager now accesses the data and distributes the water usage accurately to each apartment owner. Hourly water consumption data also helps the building manager quickly identify any water leaks and take immediate action.
Sensors include;
534 Hot and cold digital water meters
2 Receivers
Watch a video discussing this project on SBS Small Business Secrets
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/could-intelligent-sensors-and-smart-devices-in-pipes-fix-australia-s-water-crisis
Read a testimonial from David Green – the Treasurer and an owner at the Miramar building
https://taggle.com/testimonial-submetering/
