Flow Measurement Articles & Technical Insights
Explore practical guidance, engineering perspectives and technical resources covering flow measurement, energy metering, installation, accuracy and meter selection.
Latest Technical Articles
Browse technical guidance and practical perspectives designed to support better-informed flow and energy measurement decisions.
Ultrasonic Flow Meters: Non-Invasive Measurement for Modern Systems
In today’s energy-conscious world, precise measurement is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. Whether you’re managing a commercial building, optimizing an HVAC system, or streamlining industrial processes, having accurate flow data is crucial. That’s where ultrasonic...
The BTU Energy Meter Installation Guide
In the fast-moving world of energy management, precision is everything. That’s why more businesses, facility managers, and HVAC professionals are turning to BTU energy meters for reliable and accurate measurement of thermal energy consumption. This BTU energy meter...
Types of Flow Meters Explained: Which One Fits Your Needs?
When it comes to measuring fluid movement, accuracy is everything. Whether you’re tracking water, gas, oil, or steam, choosing the right flow meter can save time, money, and headaches. But with so many types of flow meters on the market, how do you know which one fits...
Condensate BTU Meter: How HEATX2 Delivers Next-Level Energy Measurement Accuracy
In today’s energy-conscious world, precise measurement of thermal energy is paramount for optimizing efficiency and reducing costs. Traditional methods often fall short in accuracy and maintenance requirements. Enter the Condensate BTU Meter, specifically the HEATX2,...
How to Choose the Right Flow Meter for Your Application
Choosing the right flow meter for your application is critical for ensuring accurate, reliable, and cost-effective fluid measurement. Whether you’re measuring water, gas, steam, or chemical flows, the device you select must align with your system’s specific...
What Is a Flow Meter? Understanding the Basics of Flow Measurement
In today’s energy-driven world, precision matters more than ever. Whether it’s monitoring water usage, steam systems, fuel lines, or chemical flow, the ability to measure fluid accurately is essential for efficiency, compliance, and cost control. That’s where flow...
How Condensate Meters Work: A Straightforward Guide for Energy Professionals
In the energy industry, accuracy isn’t optional—it’s everything. That’s especially true when it comes to tracking steam usage and reclaiming valuable condensate. Whether you’re in power generation, chemical processing, or HVAC systems, understanding how condensate...
Industries That Use Condensate Meters: Where Precision Flow Measurement Matters
In the world of energy, data is power—and nowhere is that more evident than in the industries that rely on condensate meters. From massive power plants to pharmaceutical facilities, industries that use condensate meters all share one thing: the need for accurate,...
What Are Condensate Meters?
In the energy and industrial sectors, accurate measurement of liquids and gases is critical to operational efficiency and cost management. One of the essential instruments in this field is the condensate meter. But what are condensate meters, and why are they...
The Benefits of Using BTU Energy Meters in Commercial Buildings
Introduction Energy efficiency is a top priority for commercial building owners and facility managers looking to reduce costs and improve sustainability. One of the most effective ways to monitor and optimize energy usage is through BTU Energy Meters in Commercial...
The Best BTU Energy Meters for HVAC Systems
In today’s energy-conscious world, efficiency is key. For HVAC systems, accurate measurement of thermal energy is essential not only for optimizing performance but also for maintaining cost-effectiveness and environmental sustainability. One tool stands out as a...
How Do BTU Energy Meters Work?
BTU (British Thermal Unit) energy meters are crucial tools for accurately measuring the amount of thermal energy used in heating or cooling systems. As energy efficiency becomes increasingly important, businesses, commercial buildings, and homeowners are all looking...
How to Measure Building Heating BTU without Measuring Hot Water Loop or Steam Flow
In most building heating systems the main energy source is provided as steam from a central utility plant (CUP). The steam travels throughout a campus through underground lines and is then tapped into each and every building. Once in the building, the steam passes...
What Your Mother Never Told You About Measuring Steam Flow
Ok, I’m sure your mother never said word one to you about measuring steam flow, but if she had, I’m sure she would have mentioned that setting up your steam system for precise measurement and minimal losses can be a toughy. The issue boils down (see what I did there?)...
Mechanical Flow Meters vs Magnetic Flow Meters
Magnetic flow meters are increasingly taking the place of traditional mechanical flow meter designs. While they both measure the flow of a liquid in a pipe, they do so in different ways. The most common mechanical flow meters are inserted into a pipe and use a...
The Weakest Link in BTU Energy Measurement Systems
As energy conservation becomes more prevalent throughout society, the requirement arises for most users/industries to first measure energy usage in order to conserve. For heating and chilled water applications, this requires the installation of flow and temperature...
How to Accurately Calculate Energy Consumed from Measuring Condensate
In considering the energy provided and consumed through a Steam distribution system as a billable commodity, accurate measurement is critical to provide justifiable cost statements. As discussed in the previous article, practice has been to measure the steam provided...
Condensate Measurement in Ethanol Production
As process measurements are addressed in the production of ethanol, it has become evident that the condensate measurement in the evaporators has become a problem area. With multiple evaporators in parallel and fouling being selective and not universal, indentifying a...
Ultrasonic Vs. Magnetic Flow Meters
While selecting the proper flow meter technology for your system is critical, your ability to rely on the meter’s readings will depend more heavily on the application. Every meter technology will have its advantages and disadvantages, but it’s the nuances of your...
The Benefits of Sub-Metering On College Campuses
College campuses can benefit from sub-metering from a business, engineering, and management perspective— all of which are vital to an institution’s sustainability. The full weight of these benefits can vary between small and larger schools. Small colleges will benefit...
Why You’re Probably Overspending on Energy
You’re an engineer for a big company, university campus, or government agency. Your job is to identify and implement the best energy solutions for a pretty large geographic area. This means you need the right tools. Unfortunately, accuracy when it comes to billing is...
Metering A Heating System: Condensate Vs. Steam Measurement
To calculate energy usage and loads for a heating system, the question is: Which side of the heating system should we measure to provide the most accurate and encompassing measurement results? The simple answer would be the steam side since this is the heating medium...
Not All Flow Meters Are Created Equal! Part 2
Now that we have established why the flow meter is the most inaccurate component of the energy measurement system, what does this accuracy/inaccuracy really mean and how does it impact the measurement? Let’s start by defining measurement. What kind of accuracy is...
Piping Requirements For Flow Meter Installation
A distorted fluid velocity profile is one of the most common reasons for inaccurate flow meter readings. Swirls or other distortions in the flow are caused by the tees, elbows and valves that make piping systems functional. But, to keep your flow meter functional as...
Truth in Specsmanship, Part 3
This time I will review the specsmanship of a single turbine insertion style meter. Its manufacturer infers the meter’s performance by once again mixing and matching information in an attempt to project its capabilities beyond what is possible, with regard to the...
Selecting A Flow Meter For Pressurized Systems
It’s easy to choose the wrong flow meter. There are many different meter technologies on the market today, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. These variations in functionality and performance are very important to consider when selecting the most appropriate...
Truth in Specsmanship, Part 1
Most of today’s flow technologies (paddle wheel, turbines, orifice plates, variable area, pitot tube, vortex, and magnetic) are volumetric, meaning that these devices measure velocity and then calculate volume by using a known cross section area (Velocity...
Not All Flow Meters Are Created Equal!
As energy usage has become a lightning rod for conversation and studies regarding efficiency, the ability to measure and quantify energy consumption has become forefront in the battle to get a handle on what is being used and how efficient or inefficient that use may...
Flow Meters And LEED: Your Green Building Certification
In the United States, there are more than 5 million commercial and industrial buildings, and combined they are responsible for 45 percent of the total amount of greenhouse gasses that are generated in this country. Furthermore, the EPA reports that 30 percent of the...
Flowmeter Accuracy Vs. Repeatability
Although some believe that good repeatability is a measure of accuracy, this is a misconception. Repeatability is in no way an accuracy guarantee. Therefore, when considering a measurement device such as a flowmeter, if you see only a repeatability statement and no...
Truth in Specsmanship, Part 2
This installment of “Truth In Specsmanship” will examine the insertion magmeter technology as it relates to turndown. Turndown is the operating range of a given meter, based on the maximum operating velocity, divided by the turndown factor. For example, suppose a...
Three Tips for Selecting a Hot/Chilled Water BTU System to Improve Accuracy
As far as hot/chilled water BTU measurement systems goes, panel mounted energy computers, volumetric flow meters, and high precision temperature elements have become the technology solution of choice for most facilities and plants. With that being said, in most cases,...
Here is Why Energy Sector Industries Benefit from our HEATX-2 BTU Meters
As far as hot/chilled water BTU measurement systems goes, panel mounted energy computers, volumetric flow meters, and high precision temperature elements have become the technology solution of choice for most facilities and plants. With that being said, in most cases,...
The Truth About Flow Meter Accuracy Statements
Flow meter accuracy versus Flow meter turndown is a subject that gets very little attention, but has a huge impact on true measurement accuracy, especially under low flow conditions. Typically accuracy statements are established under lab test conditions with NIST...
Advantages and Disadvantages of Inline vs. Insertion Volumetric Flow Meters
When selecting certain types of volumetric flow meters you may be faced with the option of choosing either an in line flow meter or insertion style meter of the same technology. We will review some of the advantages and disadvantages of each option and how they may...
Three Tips for maximizing your Volumetric Flow Meter’s Efficiency
As far as volumetric flow measurement goes, magnetic flow meters have become the flow technology of choice for most facilities and plants looking to incur significant savings on energy, maintenance, and processing costs. Magnetic flow meters are perfect for measuring...
Flow Meter Calibration Is A Thing Of The Past With The New Industry Standard
Calibrating a flow meter can be a hassle and a headache, but there is a new industry standard in measuring liquid flow that will change your tune. Every so often flow meters need to be calibrated, meaning their performance must be compared to a standard, and the...
Achieving the Highest Energy Usage Accuracy Through Condensate Measurement
Typical steam distribution systems rely on steam flow measurements as a way to measure and bill energy usage at a given point-of-use (building or structure, Heat exchanger, fan coil unit, etc.). Does measuring and billing this way make a major assumption that may not...
Why Condensate Conductivity Is Never Too Low For CMAG Magnetic Flow Meters
Due to the nature of the magnetic flow meter measurement (which uses Faraday’s law to measure voltage/velocity of a liquid as it moves through a magnetic field generated by the coils embedded in the flow tube) there is a requirement for the liquid to maintain a...
Types Of Volumetric Flow Meters
Flow meters measure the amount of liquid, gas or vapor passing through a piping system. Most flow meters are designed to measure the velocity, or speed at which the fluid flows through a pipe. They use that information along with the pipe’s inner cross sectional area...
New Milestone for CMAG in Pumped and Gravity Condensate Applications
Central Station Steam is proud to announce the sale of our 1000th CMAG meter for condensate service. Originally designed for pumped condensate service with no flow profiling or piping straight run required, the CMAG has now been customer proven to be an excellent...
![A Guide to Different Types of Energy Meters [Infographic]](https://i0.wp.com/cadillacmeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/different-types-of-energy-meters.jpg?resize=1080%2C628&ssl=1)
A Guide to Different Types of Energy Meters [Infographic]
BTU meters are absolutely essential in today’s world; with the electric meter market expected to grow at 6.7% CAGR from 2020 to 2025, there is no stopping this domain from increasing. The industry’s market size is expected to range from $20.7 Billion in 2020 to $28.6...
How to Simplify the Measurement of a Building’s Energy Consumption
As discussed in our previous article, “How to Measure Building Heating BTU without Measuring Hot Water Loop or Steam Flow” the typical building requires energy measurement devices and the measurement of both the Heating and Cooling in order to measure total building...