Water Nonintrusive Load Monitoring

Resource conservation decisions require detailed consumption information. This paper presents sensors and signal processing techniques that use pipe vibration signatures to non-intrusively identify water consumption at the appliance level. The method requires as little as one easily installed vibration sensor. This method provides a no-fuss retrofit solution for detecting the operation of a building's water consuming appliances. In addition, flow rate is nonintrusively obtained from a conventional water meter via a new, high sensitivity strap-on magnetic sensor. Together, these two sensors track load operating schedule and water consumption in a building, demonstrated here at three different field test sites.