I have often commented that industrial grade equipment is extremely reliable. You bet your life on it every time you fly in an airplane, for example. But even though meters and sensors are reliable, airplanes have redundant backup systems, for good reason.
No matter how good equipment may be, it can always fail. Particularly if that equipment is . . . a computer printer or a flowmeter! These things have an inordinate share of the innate perversity of inanimate objects. Beware, beware of believing flowmeters, especially when they are used by nitwits at places such as Defkalion. I recently got an object lesson in flowmeters. I, of all people, should have known you can't trust 'em! DeKalb County recently installed fancy electronic remote read ones. Our water bill increased from: 2800 gallons per billing period 2700 1600 To: 18,700 14,400 etc. The water department said it was probably a leak in the water line to the house. Instead of checking carefully I believed them and had it changed out on in April. The latest water bill shows the same high usage. So, I read the meter on August 26 at 10:56 PM: 006203841 At 7:10 AM the next morning the meter read: 006204633 That's 792 gallons over 8 hours, 14 minutes. That would be a leak of 1.6 gallons/minute. I watched the meter for several minutes in the morning when there was no activity in the house. Nada. Nothing. I then flushed one toilet of 2.5 gallons capacity. The meter increased by 284 gallons, and stopped increasing as soon as the toilet refilled. Now I have to convince the County to send out someone to test it. They did that before, but the test did not actually involve running some water. They have to send out a Supervisor for that, and the Supervisor has not called me back. - Jed
