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Appliance Types

Owned by rachelb (Deactivated)
30 Jan 2019
3 min read

The Appliance Types menu allows the user to specify the water consumption parameters of different appliances in the following end-use categories:

  • shower
  • washing machine
  • toilets
  • indoor hand taps
  • pool

These parameters are used by the behavioural model to calculate water use volumes for a household, given the specific appliance types and occupancy of that household.

Note that the outdoor/variable end-use is not included in the Appliance Types menu and is specified in the Behavioural Water Use node Feature Editor.

Urban Developer provides default appliance types and parameters for each end-use category based on the research of Thyer et al. (2009) and publications cited therein. The default appliance types can be edited, renamed or deleted, and new appliance types can be created. However, the underlying water consumption models cannot be edited. Future work is to expose some of the parameters of these models (specifically, how usage frequency scales with the number of occupants) to the user.

Restrictions

The Appliance Types are available for Urban Scenarios only.

Dependencies

None

Outputs

The appliance types are used by the Sampled Appliances & Occupancy and the Behavioural Water Use node.

Contents

Properties

Shower

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeNANA
Volume Mean

Shower flow rate is modelled using a log-normal distribution.

Volume Mean is the mean (unitless) of the normal distribution obtained by taking the natural logarithm of the log-normal distribution.

L/min*>= 0
Volume SD

Shower flow rate is modelled using a log-normal distribution.

Volume SD is the standard deviation (unitless) of the normal distribution obtained by taking the natural logarithm of the log-normal distribution.

L/min*> 0
Duration Mean

Shower duration is modelled using a log-normal distribution.

Duration Mean is the mean (unitless) of the normal distribution obtained by taking the natural logarithm of the log-normal distribution.

min*>= 0
Duration SD

Shower duration is modelled using a log-normal distribution.

Duration SD is the standard deviation (unitless) of the normal distribution obtained by taking the natural logarithm of the log-normal distribution.

min*> 0
Daily ProbAverage number of showers/person/daynone>= 0

 * Units are for the log-normal distribution.

Dishwasher

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeNANA
VolumeThe volume of water used by the dishwasher during each minute of a 20 minute cycle. It is not currently possible to distribute the water use over a cycle greater than 20 minutes in length.L>= 0

Hand Tap

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeNANA
VolumeAverage litres per usage eventL>= 0

Toilet

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeNANA
Full VolumeThe average volume of a full flush for a single or dual-flush toiletL>= 0
Full Daily ProbAverage number of full toilet flushes/person/day for single or dual-flush toiletsnone>= 0
Half VolumeThe average volume of a half toilet flush for a single or dual-flush toiletL>= 0
Half Daily ProbAverage number of half toilet flushes/person/day for dual-flush toiletsnone>= 0

Washing Machine

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeNANA
Vol MeanMean volume of a washing machine eventL>= 0
Vol SDStandard deviation of a washing machine eventL> 0
Distribution

The distribution used to model the washing machine water usage per event. Options are:

  • Normal
  • Log-normal

If a log-normal distribution is selected, then Vol Mean and Vol SD are the unitless mean and standard deviation, respectively, of the normal distribution obtained by taking the natural logarithm of the log-normal distribution.

NANA

Pool

PropertyDescriptionUnitsConstraints
NameThe name of the appliance typeL>= 0
Surface AreaThe pool surface aream2>= 0
Initial DepthThe depth of water in the pool at the start of the simulationm>= 0
Maximum DepthThe maximum depth of the poolm>= 0

Default Appliance Types

The table below lists the default appliance types for each end-use category. Water efficiency star ratings are based on WELS scheme (AS/NZS6400:2005, Water Efficient Products - Rating and Labelling)

End-use CategoryDefault Appliance Types
Shower0, 1, 2 or 3-star shower head
DishwasherDishwasher, no dishwasher
Washing MachineTop loader, front loader
Hand Tap

Standard, no tap

Toilet

Dual flush 4.5/3 litre (4-Star)

Dual flush 6/3 litre (3-Star)

Dual flush 9/4.5 litre (1-Star)

Dual flush 11/6 litre (0-Star)

Single flush 10 litre (0-Star)

PoolPool, no pool

User Interface

Appliance Types are configured via the Urban Settings menu.

Urban Developer provides default appliance types for each end-use category. The default appliance types can be edited, renamed or deleted, and new appliance types can be created.

Technical Details

The water consumption models for each of the end-use categories are detailed in Thyer et al. (2009) and references cited therein.

The application of these models to simulate the temporal variability in water use events is described in the behavioural model.

References

Roberts, P. (2005). 2004 Residential End Use Measurement Study, Final Report: Yarra Valley Water, Victoria.

Thyer, M.A., Duncan, H., Coombes, P., Kuczera, G. and Micevski, T. (2009) A Probabilistic Behavioural Approach for the Dynamic Modelling of Indoor Household Water Use. 32nd Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, 30 November – 3 December 2009, Newcastle, Australia.