Water Meter Program Analysis

Project Highlights

The City of Kelowna initiated a universal residential water metering program in 1996.  In 2014, the water meters were nearing their nominal 20-year service life, and many of the City’s ICI meters were likely to be beyond their service lives.  The City of Kelowna retained KWL to carry out an analysis of its water meter program and provide recommendations and for upgrading the metering equipment.

The project was completed in two phases. The first phase involved analyzing the City’s water meter inventory and historical program costs.  The second phase involved interviewing other municipalities in British Columbia to identify best practices and lessons learned, meeting with suppliers to gather product information, and providing a financial analysis of potential meter replacement options and meter service contracts.

One of the final deliverables for the project was an evaluation matrix that compared multiple replacement options based on costs (net present value and current capital & operating costs), product support, water meter features (leak detection, tamper detection, reverse flow detection), ease of expansion and parameters for data quality (i.e. synchronicity of readings).  This evaluation matrix is being used by the City for long-term planning for its water metering program.