September 19, 2022 |
Saratoga’s water meter replacement project is nearing completion. Work began in April to replace the town’s aging water meters. With over 1,000 meters installed, the town of Saratoga has less than two dozen to go.
Jon Winter, the head of the Saratoga Public Works Department, said the town is waiting on their supplier to restock 16 meters. His crew is working to complete the job while handling other tasks required of them.
Pictured above: Replacement water meter in Saratoga. Photo by Bigfoot 99.
The old water meters are close to the end of their operational life. The new meters are more accurate and allow the town to monitor specific water usage data. This information gets beamed directly to his office.
When the new meters were put in, Winter and his crew also installed new pressure relief valves, or PRV’s. They limit the water pressure to a building. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends that homes have between 50 and 80 pounds per square inch, or PSI, of water flow. Some of the old PRV’s were faulty and allowed higher than normal pressure. The new PRV’s were defaulted to 70 psi.
Shortly after the installation project began in the spring, some residents complained about having too low of water pressure. According to Winter, a number of these people were concerned about having enough water pressure to raise the spray heads on their sprinkler systems. Too high of water pressure can burst pipes and damage appliances, though.
Winter had anyone who wanted extra pressure to sign a waiver to say that the town was not responsible if anything was damaged from the higher pressure. Seventy-four people did. There have been no reports of exploding dishwashers.
The meter project wasn’t affected by the town’s groundwater. The meters sit in pits that were dug in 2010. Winter’s team was able to pump the pits out while they worked. Winter said that water doesn’t harm the meters.
The new meters make collecting information much easier. Water usage is uploaded directly to the town’s computers. Winter said there isn’t much disparity between the readings of the old and new meters.
The Public Works Department will be able to finish the job when the back-ordered meters arrive.
