Quick action taken by Senior Plumber Ben Kither and his team saved the Adelaide Oval more than 30 million litres of water, all through identification of a simple leak caused by one stuck float valve.

Managing water use at Adelaide Oval is a complex task. With an internal network inclusive of more than 1300 toilets, running the facility without water is not possible.

After reviewing the smart meter data on their water use portal, the Adelaide Oval facilities team were able to identify a fault in their recycled water feed and prevent chaos on game day.

The problem was identified as a stuck ball float valve on the feed into a header tank, which supplied toilets throughout the stadium. This caused the tank to continually fill and overflow yet was a quick fix for Ben.

He believes that if the smart meter and water use portal were not in place, it could have continued leaking for quite some time, and it would have been impossible to find.

“The tank is in a room that I don’t often need to visit, and there were no sounds or evidence of the leak from the outside of the room,” he said.

To help identify leaks across your business, get in touch with our Business Relations team and find out how a smart meter could help.

A spike in water use was easy to spot on Adelaide Oval's portal, with this increase running at 870 litres per minute

Managing water on a vast, ten square kilometre plain like Monarto Zoo presents a certain set of challenges for Monarto Zoo’s Senior works Supervisor Paul Stapleton and his team. And when they noticed an unintended mini wetland, complete with rushes and frogs, they knew they had a problem.

Finding the leak or break could take months. But their smart meter showed them where to look.

Paul and his team noticed increased water use on one of the eight meters monitored through their portal. Investigation based on the data revealed a leak with a peak flow of 20 litres per minute. It is estimated that if the leak continued for another three months, it could have cost the zoo up to $10,000 and three million litres of lost water.

“It could have taken many months longer to locate or appear without the warning from the Portal.Just by looking at the data we can understand if water use has increased due to normal use such as taps being turned on, or if a burst or a leak is occurring,” Paul said.

“Logging in and checking the site water use is now part of the morning ritual, along with reading emails.”

By using smart meters and the customer water use portal, the team at Zoos SA have seen a huge improvement in their response rate to leak and break activity. Our team can work with you to provide the best water security options for your business.

Students from Heathfield High School have improved the water efficiency of their school by successfully using information from smart meter water use portals.

Through a partnership with the Department for Education and Child Development (DECD), smart metering services were provided to Heathfield High to help them monitor and manage their water use. Data loggers installed to larger meters and access to the secure online portals to view consumption data has achieved great results.

Students from Heathfield High School were able to:

• observe regular water use patterns occurring in the early hours of the morning throughout spring
• adjust watering patterns to suit the cooler, wet conditions
• analyse the flow rates and calculate the cost of the water being used, rescheduling irrigation, and preventing unnecessary water consumption.

To discover the benefits of easily managing water use on large scale infrastructure, contact our Business Relations team.