"All the pieces matter." - A valuable lesson in homeownership. (Water meter)

[six-point socket II]

"We're building something here, detective. We're building it from scratch. All the pieces matter." Clarke Peters as "Det. Lester Freamon" on "The Wire".

In homeownership there is a lot that falls into the category of "business as usual". Like the letter from your water utility that they like to come out on a certain day to replace your water meter. Every 5 - 7 years they replace your old water meter with a newly calibrated one that is good for the next 5 - 7 years.

For us that means either me or my better-half remove the doors to the cabinet where the water meter is installed, a day or so ahead of the appointment. Sometimes I check the cabinet a couple of times throughout the year, sometimes I forget.

It happened to be my turn, and after opening the cabinet I was a little stunned to find whiteish to greenish crystalline residue right beneath the water meter.

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Thankful for front facing cameras on current smartphones, I investigated a little further.

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I probably don't need to say that I wasn't too happy about what I saw.

Complete unit.

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It could have been any day, but obviously it was Sunday and the scheduled appointment for replacing it the next day, Monday.

What to do? Do anything at all?

First I opened my extensive picture library and went looking for older pictures that might have captured the opened cabinet. I found one from mid 2022 and the residue was visible after zooming in.

I then wrote two e-mails. One to the latest master plumber working for us, one to the manufacturer of the water meter.

The master plumber got back to me the same night and said that it might be caused by condensing, higher temperature in the room, cold water flowing through. I'll be honest, in that very moment that was good enough of an explanation for me to decide to not worry anymore about it and go to bed. It was to be replaced the next day anyway.

The next morning I also get a reply from the manufacturer of the water meter. Lecturing me that they can't possibly correspond with all of the endusers of their meters, that I should contact the utility, they "own" the meter anyway, and basically to never contact them again.

I was a bit baffled, since I wrote them a very polite e-mail, asking about the condition and offering my assistance in retrieving this unit if they maybe wanted to inspect it. Since the utility sends a contractor who replaces these units and all of them end up in the same bin - it wouldn't have been easily possible to retrieve the unit once the contractor was gone. I had never seen anything like this before and - my master plumbers explanation or not - for me something wasn't right.

Obviously I accept if someone tells me that he doesn't want to talk to me, but that's also definitely the point when you catch my undivided attention - since a failure of this unit could have had catastrophic impact on our property & lives.

I did some research and what I found/ the replies I got seemed to agree with my master plumber, it can happen from condensation.

I also checked my files and realized the utility was a little early with the replacement, the old water meter would have been good for at least another year.

Now if you take a closer look at the second picture, you can see that all of the three green spots have a distinctive white spot in the middle, almost like the core of a foot corn. To me, and I'm really not an expert, that seemed like it came from the inside out and not the other way around like it would if it really was caused by condensation. Long shot, I know.

To me the final dead giveaway then was the replacement unit. It had a thickly coated blue bottom. Now we don't pay for these meters, as I've said they are owned by the utility, but my guess would be, these are a bit more expensive. And if you know utilities, they will never pay more unless they have to for some reason - or might have the chance of getting these for free from the manufacturer because of the need for premature replacement. Could be, right?

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A bit later our projects went on, our master plumber sent his team to do some work for us and we get along really well. I bring up the topic of the water meter and his journeyman, who is really well connected around town and with other tradesmen, tells me without any hesitation: Oh those, well, you know, I know about X-cases of them bursting in peoples homes causing (immense) damage, in at least one case the whole basement of a multi family residence got flooded, (...).

So yeah, "All the pieces matter."

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Holzhacker]

Every 5-7 years? What kind of nonsense is that? You guys need better quality water meters.
Around here once that meter goes in, its there for life unless there is a failure or compliant. People around here would freak out if they had to replace the meter on that schedule. Especially if they had to pay for it.
Luckily, we don't have a meter.

 

[tsmi243]

"You Germans and your wasteful methods"

- guy from Chicago  ;D

Seriously tho, I think it's pretty normal in the US for a meter to go until the wheels fall off.  I wonder what the reasoning is.  What's the country of origin on the meter?  German, or ..... miscellaneous?

 

[six-point socket II]

Except for this case, generally it has nothing to do with the quality of the meters - it's the law.

Everything that meters, weighs, counts, (...) something for the purpose of selling it, has to be calibrated & certified (proved) and at some point that calibration and certificate (proving) are considered void. Expensive meters like gas pumps, registers with built in weigh scales, (...) can be re-calibrated/testet/proved and certified for another period.

With these residential water, gas & electrical meters, cost of re-calibration and certification/proving would be prohibitive in comparison to the cost of these units.

Obviously we do pay for these meters one way or another, but there is no direct payment for them or the exchange by the utilities.

In German language "calibration" would be the wrong word anyway, a better english word may be "meter proving" - it's an official procedure, there are hefty fines if you tamper with proved meters.

Yes the meter is German made. Most of them are actually.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Jimdude]

Yeah here in Belgium they're for life too. Except when they swap them for digital which is what they're doing now (and it would lead to way too political nonsense if I were to get any further into that idiocy).

Anyway, if it was condensation, you'd have it on all copper pieces in that installation. It was deffo leaking/corroding inside out and you dodged a bullet. Also, condensed water does not contain copper particles , so the damage/residue you see in the cabinet should never have been green.

Also, welcome back!

 

[tsmi243]

In German language "calibration" would be the wrong word anyway, a better english word may be "meter proving"

Certification or validation, maybe?

 

[MikeGE]

Although he doesn't need my support, Oliver is absolutely correct.  I bought my house in 2011, which was three years after it was built.  Our water meter is outside in a manhole, but the gas and electric meters are inside.  Our electric meter has been replaced twice, with the newest meter last year.  The gas and water meters were replaced once, so we are likely due for a replacement soon.

 

[six-point socket II]

Thanks Mike!

--

And on another note, I'm quite baffled that the German governmental-run websites (one for each state) covering this topic are only available in German. Would have loved to post a link, it's quite interesting to see the range of different measuring equipment/ meters that have to be "certified".

Kind regards,
Oliver