Hunter’s Curve in

the 21 Century
st

ACEEE Hot Water Forum

Steven Buchberger
November 4, 2013
What is Hunter’s Curve?

2
Hunter’s Curve Predicts Peak Flow

GPM

Fixture Units

3
4
Life in 1940

Population = 2.3B Gas = $0.2/gal 5

Life in 2013

Population = 7.0B Gas = $4/gal 6

End User Demand (21 units)

100
Friday, May 16
Flow (L/min)

80
60
40
20
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24
Hour
7
One Fixture is a Bernoulli Trial

t
q

Average duration of flow

p = t/T =
Avg time btn consecutive uses
8
Three Key Parameters…..

Fixture Characteristics
t
q

p = t/T Human Behavior

9
Many Fixtures Exist

1 2 3 ••• k ••• n

1
2
3
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Many Fixtures Exist

1 2 3 ••• k ••• n

1
2
3
Overlapping pulses 11
 Design Problem

“Assuming that there are n (identical ) fixtures

in a system, each operated once in T
seconds on the average, and that each
operation is of t seconds average duration,
what is the probability that k fixtures will be
found operating simultaneously at any
arbitrarily chosen instant of observation”?

(Roy Hunter, 1940)

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Many Fixtures are Binomial

1 2 3 ••• k ••• n

exactly k busy fixtures  n

   k   p  1  p 
k nk
Pr 
 out of n total fixtures   
where p 
t
T
 k  0,1,..., n 
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 Binomial Distribution Example
Binomial Distribution for Flush Tanks

0.4

0.3
probability

p=0.20; n=7
0.2

0.1

0
0 2 4 6 8
Number of Busy Fixtures

 exactly k   7 
Pr       0.2   0.8
k 7k
k  0,1,..., 7
busy fixtures   k  14
Design Condition is 99th Percentile
Binomial Distribution for Flush Tanks

0.4

0.3
probability

p=0.20; n=7
0.2

0.1

0
0 2 4 6 8
Number of Busy Fixtures

99% chance 1% chance

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Design Flow, One Fixture Group
40
p=t/T=0.2
30

Q(0.99) 20
(gpm)
n=7; Q=16 gpm
10
Fixture Group A

0
0 10 20 30 40
n

 4 gpm 
Q  n  7 0.99   m  q    4 fixtures     16 gpm
 fixture  16
Design Flows, Two Fixture Groups
40
p=t/T=0.20

30

Q(0.99) 20
(gpm) p=t/T=0.05
10
Fixture Group A
Fixture Group B
0
0 10 20 30 40
n

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Common Currency One Curve

GPM

Fixture Units

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 Hunter’s Track Record

Hunter’s curve has withstood the test of time

and is the basis for plumbing codes around
the globe today.
Hunter’s curve went viral long before U-tube
arrived; not surprising, it is clever, convenient,
correct.
However, today Hunter’s curve is often faulted
for giving overly conservative design….why?
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 Two Main Issues

[1] Simplicity is seductive. Hunter’s curve

has been applied to many situations for
which it was not intended.
[2] Times have changed. Water use fixtures
(hot and cold) have become much more
efficient since Hunter’s pioneering work.

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Hunter’s Curve in 1940

GPM

Fixture Units

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Hunter’s Curve in 2013

LEED,
GPM NZE, HE fixtures = lower q

uncongested use = lower n, p

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Old Habits Die Hard

 National effort in US to update Hunter’s

curve for peak water demands.
 Driven by professional societies, not the
US Gov’t (not Nat’l Bureau Standards).
 Prevailing sentiment is to simply revise the
fixture units in the code.
 What would Roy Hunter do?
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 IAPMO Sub-Task Group Orders

“….work singularly to develop the

probability model to predict peak
residential demands based on the
number of plumbing fixtures of
different kinds installed in one
system.”

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 Aquacraft Data Sets

• 2011 California Single Family Home Water Use

Efficiency Study (n=750)
• 2011 Albuquerque Retrofit Study
o Pre-retrofit (n=240)
o Post-retrofit (n=29)
• 2010 EPA Standard New Homes (n=302)
• 2010 EPA High Efficiency New Homes (n=25)

[1,346 homes ….. >15,000 home days]

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 Data Base Queries

1 home unique ID
2 range of home IDs
3 Aquacraft data set(s)
4 age of home
5 retrofit status of home (Y/N)
6 geographic location of home
7 fixture performance (NLF, LF, ULF )
8 fixture group

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 Data Base Queries

1 home unique ID
2 range of home IDs
3 Aquacraft data set(s)
4 age of home 9 indoor water use
5 10 (Y/N)outdoor water use
retrofit status of home
6 geographic location 11of homeweekday water use
7 fixture performance 12 weekend
(NLF, LF, ULF ) water use
8 fixture group 13 AM or PM use
14 hot or cold water use *
15 per capita daily water use
16 total annual household water use

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 Data Base Queries

1 home unique ID
2 range of home IDs
3 Aquacraft data set(s)
4 age of home 9 indoor water use
5 10 (Y/N)outdoor water use
retrofit status of home
6 geographic location 11 weekday water use
of home
17 home square footage
7 12 weekend
fixture performance (NLF, LF, ULF ) water use
18 yard square footage
8 fixture group 13 AM or PM use
19 number of bedrooms
14 hot or cold water use
20 number of bathrooms
15 per capita daily water use
21 number of occupants
16 total annual household water use
22 age of occupants
23 water meter size
24 ? _____________
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Six Types of Residential Fixtures

[1] Toilets (3 efficiency levels)

[2] Showers
[3] Bathtubs
[4] Faucets (all sinks)
[5] Dishwasher (energy star ratings)
[6] Clothes Washer (energy star ratings)

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Three Characteristics of Fixtures

[1] Pulse Intensity (q)

[2] Pulse Duration (t)
[3] Pulse Frequency (T)

t
q
T
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 Water Pulse Characteristics
(example, N=50 homes)

Fixture No of Typical Minimum Average (Nominal) Typical Maximum Standard Deviation Sample Terms and Units
Group Fixtures Water Pulse Water Pulse Water Pulse Water Pulse Size Water Pulse
n q t v=qt q t v=qt q t v=qt q t v N q t v
FG 1 100 1.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 2.00 3.00 2.00 2.50 5.00 0.25 0.25 1.00 774
FG 2 100 1.50 3.50 5.25 3.00 8.00 24.00 3.50 10.00 35.00 0.50 1.50 6.00 191 gpm min gal
FG 4 50 1.00 0.50 0.50 1.00 0.50 0.50 1.00 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 1040.3

Fixture Average (Nominal)

Group Water Pulse
q t v=qt
FG 1 1.50 2.00 3.00
FG 2 3.00 8.00 24.00
FG 4 1.00 0.50 0.50
(gpm) (min) (gal)
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 Peak Flow (99th percentile)
(example, N=50 homes)

Probability of
Fixture Fixture Use Hour ending 7 am
Group p=t/T Fixtures Flow (gpm)
7 am 8 am mean var mean var
FG 1, n=100 0.026 0.041 2.6 2.5 3.9 5.7
FG 2, n=100 0.103 0.051 10.3 9.2 30.9 83.2
FG 4, n=50 0.028 0.019 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4
14.3 13.1 36.2 90.3

Q(0.99)= 58.3 gpm

per Wistort 1994
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Tantalizing Possibilities

 Normal approximation (Wistort, 1994)

 Computer simulation: SIMDEUM or PRPsym
 Full enumeration of CDF (WDSA 2012)
 Merge w/ Bldg Information Modeling (BIM)
 “There’s an app for that!”

+ + + =
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Questions?

Steven.Buchberger@uc.edu
University of Cincinnati

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Phones to Faucets Analogy

“Arrival Rates” “Time Between Uses”

Poisson Model Binomial Model
Erlang 1918 Hunter 1940 35
 End User Examples - 1

Hospitals

Schools

Shutterstock.com
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 End User Examples - 2

Opera Houses

Bus/Rail Stations

Shutterstock.com
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 End User Examples – 3…

Hotels, CBD

Sports Stadiums

Shutterstock.com
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