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Water Metering for Mobile Home Parks

Water Metering for Mobile Home Parks

Posted by Justin Rosa on 12th Aug 2021

Water Metering Solutions for Mobile Home Parks

There are many solutions for water metering and sub-metering in mobile home parks. Flows.com has been providing these solutions for years to many. The water metering solutions range from simple mechanical water meters to sophisticated wireless metering systems that can be read online with a web browser or mobile app.

Related: Why Mobile Home Parks Should Submeter Water and Sewer?


Simple Mechanical Water Meters

The simplest and lowest cost water metering solution for mobile homes is to add a mechanical water meter to each home where the water main connection is. This meter remains property of the mobile home park owner. These meters will need to be read manually on a regular basis, so location is important.

Some additional considerations that are common to mobile home parks are freezing and protection from the elements in pits. If temperatures occasionally drop slightly below freezing for a few hours or less, A low-cost insulating jacket will do the trick. More severe temperature drops may require the use of heating tape or other source of heat.

When meters are installed in pits, make sure that the meter is “pit rated” such as the  Neptune T10, ME-PD, or the popular D10 from Assured Automation.

See our range of Residential Water Meters


Adding a Digital Display

Since the meter will commonly need to be located under the home, and multi-jet meters need to be installed with the register facing upwards, this option is greatly appreciated by those tasked with reading the meters. Running a simple  $30 pulse output switch and wire from the meter to the digital display. The display can now be located somewhere much more convenient for reading.

Additionally, you can choose from our range of KAL-D06 displays which can be reset with the push of a button. This means that the number on the display is the usage since the last reset – that means the last reading is not needed to calculate term usage! If you are worried about tenants resetting the display on their own in order to cheat, there is a  display with lockable reset available to prevent that as well as displays that simply cannot be reset. You can also use a  KAL-D06-DUAL Dual display where only one display is resettable. And remember, the mechanical meter itself will always have the “lifetime total” so, when in doubt… you can always check that against the sum of all previous readings from the display.

Flows.com offers a variety of Digital Displays for Water Meters.


Adding a Wall Pad for Use with a Wireless “Touch-Reader”

Another solution that is common for mobile home parks is to use Neptune T10 water meters with a ProCoder register. Then add a wall pad in place of the digital display to each meter. These wall pads are $35 each and allow instant reading of the meter they are attached to. The battery-operated Pocket ProReader is then used by management to read each meter. The meter reader simply touches the ProReader to each Wall Pad and it records the date, time, meter ID number, and of course the current meter reading.

While this solution still does require someone to be on-site and travel to the location of each meter’s wall pad, some park owners prefer this since it also provides the perfect opportunity for a general inspection of the entire park.


Implementing a Complete Wireless Water Submetering System

This includes the mechanical meters mentioned above. But in this case, you connect them to a wireless transceiver rather than a digital display or wall pad. These transceivers then transmit the pulses to a gateway that is connected to the internet via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or a cellular data plan. Once installed, park management no longer needs to be on location in order to read the meters. It can easily be done FROM ANYWHERE at ANY TIME!

In addition to the convenience of effortless off-site meter reading, these systems add protection from flooding due to leaks and help park owners avoid missed revenue due to non-reporting, meter damage and/or tampering - all via automated alerts. You can also set High and Low usage levels that will trigger alerts. The only maintenance that is required is to simply replace the transceiver batteries when needed – roughly once every 5-10 years. But don’t worry… the system will also alert you when that time comes.

Watch a comprehensive video that describes our most popular system from Next Century

View the Submetering System Product Page

Since mobile home parks are a larger than a typical apartment building with the same number of units and are spread out over a much larger area all at ground level, it is best to place the transceivers as high as possible on the exterior of the home that it serves. Furthermore, place them on the corner of the home that is closest to the gateway. Doing so eliminates many obstructions to the signal and will most likely lessen the number of repeaters needed. This results in a savings of over $350 per repeater. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for a 120VAC outlet to power each repeater.

Related: Next Century’s New TR4 Transceivers now have almost 2.5x the range as previous Models

While installation of these systems can seem daunting, nothing could be further from the truth. All Systems come pre-programmed by the experts at Flows.com and there is an extremely simple test function to use on the transceivers that allows installers to know whether or not the connection to the gateway can be made prior to final installation.

At Flows.com we have provided complete water sub-metering systems for mobile home parks all over the country for years. We know what problems can arise and how to avoid or solve them. Let the Water Meter Experts at Flows.com make metering water at YOUR mobile home park easy!