UNDER-REGISTRATION OF METERS 9 



urement, yet the present cost of these measuring devices and their main- 

 tenance is generally regarded as being altogether too large to render their 

 extensive introduction expedient in our large cities. Many water works 

 officials would doubtless cheerfully recommend, and perhaps strongly 

 urge the adoption of meters for all classes of consumers, if they could 

 obtain reasonably accurate, sensitive and durable machines at somewhat 

 lower prices than appear to prevail at the present time; and it is mainly 

 in consequence of existing prices, which the public regards as too high, 

 that all efforts to introduce a general meter system have, in the majority 

 of cities, met with determined opposition. . . . 



In lowering the limit of accuracy, however, the standard of sensitive- 

 ness must not be affected, but, on the contrary, should rather be increased 

 than diminished. Leakage of fittings and waste by small streams or 

 dribblings flowing constantly, usually give rise to greater consumption than 

 the legitimate use. The writer has often measured the leakage from a 

 defective faucet, ball-cock, and closet-valve, in households and places of 

 business, and found that a discharge of from 1 50 to 400 gallons per day from 

 a single fixture rarely excites notice on the part of the inmates, and that a 

 request to repair such fixture is regarded as grievous oppression. A loss 

 of several hundred gallons per day by continuous leakage, in a household 

 where the legitimate use is actually much smaller than this amount, is a 

 circumstance of frequent occurrence where an efficient system of house to 

 house inspection is not enforced. . . . 



The remedy usually prescribed in such a community is general meter- 

 ing; but here we are at once confronted with the fact that many of the 

 meters in the market either fail to register such small streams, or else that 

 the power required to overcome the friction of closely fitted parts is greater 

 than is tolerable. ... If it be assumed that a daily per capita consump- 

 tion of 40 gallons is a reasonable quantity, then an average family of five 

 persons should use 200 gallons per day, all of which would ordinarily be 

 drawn at a rapid rate from the fixtures, and would therefore probably be 

 recorded by almost any meter; but if only a single fixture in the dwelling 

 were leaking at the rate of 200 gallons per day, how many meters would 

 reveal the fact on their dials, especially after having been in service for a 

 few years? . . . 



In conclusion, therefore, it may be stated that a thoroughly serviceable 

 meter should have great sensitiveness, but need not have a very high degree 

 of accuracy. How these qualities can be combined with durability and 

 economy is a question whose solution is left to the skill of inventors. Emil 

 Kuichling, Trans. Am. Soc. C.E., Vol. XXV, 1891, p. 66. 



Under these conditions the use of meters was, for the most 

 part, limited to the larger services, such as those supplying fac- 



