FLOMEC® QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter Helps the City of Irvine Prevent an Estimated Thousands of Dollars a Year in Lost Water Costs

Wichita, Kan., Dec. 12, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Great Plains Industries, Inc. (GPI®) has released a new case study of its FLOMEC® QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter. The QS200 is designed to support commercial irrigation applications and measures flow rates five times lower than current flow sensors on the market—as low as 0.22GPM. It provides extended leak detection down to 0.1fps.

"We engineered the QS200 to meet a real need for municipalities and companies that rely on commercial irrigation and must control their usage and costs," said Mark Bieberle, Meter Product Manager. "Traditional paddle wheel meters often used by utilities can't read the low flows required in many irrigation applications. This limits their ability to find leaking valves or other irrigation system leaks. Small leaks can add up to big losses over time."

The new case study bears this out. An irrigation system leak went undetected until the installation of the QS200 flowmeter.

Case Study: Quail Hills Commons Park in Irvine, California

THE BUSINESS:

Quail Hills is a sub-division of the City of Irvine, California. Irvine is a master-planned city in Orange County, California, which is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The 66-square-mile city has a population of 276,000. All streets have landscaping allowances. Rights-of-way for power lines also serve as bicycle corridors, parks and greenbelts to tie together ecological preserves. The city irrigates the greenery with reclaimed water. As with every municipality in California, saving water is a critical part of the city's budget.

THE SITUATION:

The Irrigation Field Supervisor at Villa Park Landscape was overseeing a retrofit replacement of a Data Industrial Impeller Flow Sensor with a QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter at the Quail Hills Commons Park in Irvine, California.

The team began by estimating the expected flow rate in the test zone by counting the number of sprinkler heads. For this zone, the estimated flow rate was 70 GPM. This was pretty close to the actual flow rate measured by the QS200 at 73.3 GPM. After the test, the master valve was shut off. However, the controller was displaying a flow rate of 0.3 GPM. This suggested a leak in the system, on the city side of the water line. The 2" utility water meter did not indicate any flow because this is below the threshold of its measurement capability.

KEY ISSUES:

The next step was to manually close the master valve to make sure it was not leaking. Upon doing this, the controller displayed a flow rate of 0 GPM. The obvious conclusion was that the master valve was leaking. This is not a rare occurrence and accounts for a lot of wasted water in commercial irrigation systems. In this case, 0.3 GPM translates to the following water volumes over time: 18 gallons every hour, 432 gallons over 24 hours, 12,960 gallons in a month, and 157,680 gallons over a one year. That's an enormous waste of water if undetected.

THE SOLUTION:

The QS200 is an ultrasonic flow meter with no moving parts. Because of this, there is no mechanical friction, allowing it to measure much lower flow rates than mechanical impeller meters. The impeller in these meters must see a minimum flow rate such that the impeller will overcome friction and start moving in order to sense flow. This minimum flow rate is usually well above 1 GPM in a 2" line.

CONCLUSION:

This is just one example of how the QS200 can detect very small leaks that most mechanical meters are not able to detect. Detecting these small leaks can save a lot of water and money over time. In the case of the City of Irvine, it is estimated that discovering the leaking master valve and replacing it will save thousands of dollars a year in lost water costs.

About FLOMEC Brand Meters From Great Plains Industries (GPI)

GPI's FLOMEC flowmeters provide flow control solutions for commercial and lite industrial applications including turf, landscape, water reclamation, HVAC, and petrochemical flow monitoring. FLOMEC flowmeters measure a wide variety of liquids from water to lubricants in commercial process operations.

For more information on the QS200 Ultrasonic flowmeter visit flomec.net/qs200.

About Great Plains Industries, Inc.

Headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, Great Plains Industries (GPI) is a global leader in the manufacture and distribution of fuel transfer pumps, fuel meters, flow meters, and related instrumentation. The Company is home to the GPI®, FLOMEC® and GPRO® brands. GPI is known for high quality USA-made products, excellent customer service and on-time product delivery.

For more information, visit gpi.net.

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Jim Peterson, Director - Meters
Great Plains Industries, Inc.
(316) 519-5518
[email protected]