Anyone use or install a Flume2 water monitor recently ...

[Ahultin]

Right, that would have convinced me, too. They're $200 on Amazon. Other solutions, too, some much more, some much less. I'll call my city and see if they have any offers.

I could solve this another way, and just install a solenoid valve that shuts off my auto-filler supply line for the hours my softener regenerates. That would be an actual solution, instead of spending $200 just to see if I need a solution. But I'd want a solenoid valve that was normally open, and only closed when power was applied. I wouldn't want that solenoid juiced up 22 hours a day.

Edit: Yah, there is such a thing. $30-40. That's probably what I'll do. Ha, don't mind me, just talkin' to myself!

I ultimately did both but the opposite direction. I had the Flume already but as a result of the flume detecting the autofill as an almost constant leak i installed an irrigation valve attached to my intellicenter with scheduled fill times.

 

[Dirk]

I've always regretted not putting a water meter on my auto-filler supply line, when I was redoing all that and had it all open. I'll dig a hole and install the solenoid and the water meter in one go, and then be done with it. That'll make three water meters: the city's, the one I put on my drip system, and the one I'll add for the pool. Between the three, I'll be able to monitor all the usages (house, garden, pool). Maybe someday I'll go Flume. But I thought I saw on Amazon systems that can monitor more than one meter. So I could see and track each usage remotely. That'd be the geekiest, so that's got "Dirk" written all over it!

 

[jtpipkin]

Some municipalities will give you a break on your water bill for leaks or other mishaps. Take some pics of the wet spot(s) and give them a call. Ya never know. I saved about $150 last winter when my water main separated from the water meter. Of course, the city considers anything my side of the meter to be my problem, but they did give me about 50% off on the water I could prove ran through the break (based on comparing previous month's water bills). My city allows the discount just once every year or two, so you can't abuse it, and you might even want to save it if the extra charge isn't all that much.

just as an FYI, I purchased my flume because I was concerned about the amount of water I was being charged for. I really have no idea what a 'normal' amount of water usage is and I just figured family of 3, pool and irrigation system that 'x' gallons seemed about right. Turns out I had a leak between my irrigation backflow preventer and my irrigation solenoids. Crazy thing is I was losing about 800 (edit - I think I'm getting old, 80 gallons a day ) gallons a day due to the leak and we never could find it. I know, it doesn't sound possible to be losing that much water daily and not know it, but that's a fact jack! Our city is on an aquaphor and the only thing we can surmise is that the water was leaking down. That leak drove me crazy for a while until we just decided to drop a new line from the BFP and the solenoids. Problem solved. Never did find the issue and I'd had several people attempt to. I guess the old adage that knowledge is power definitely applies here. Yes, I could have just watched the micrometer on the water main, but that flume sure did make a big difference with its detailed documentation. And an added note, my flume recognizes my auto fill as normal, I just happened to catch it the other day but it was only because I looked at the app from the office.

 

[randytsuch]

I noticed yesterday that on the flume portal (flume webpage) there is a way to verify the accuracy of your flume. I didn't see this in the app. Plan to do it over the weekend.

On the geeky side, I added flume to Home Assistant yesterday, and now I have a screen in Home Assistant that shows stats from flume.
I'm thinking about if I want to create special notifications if strange usage is seen, but maybe the flume notification is enough?