Arctic Ironside Water Meter
date: label: date made
content: early 1940s
name: label: maker
content: Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company
notes: label: Description
content: This is a disc water meter with frost-proof bottom and serial number 3,609,508, made by the Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company in the early 1940s. Pittsburgh Equitable explained that “Months of preparation by Pittsburgh-National Research men, preceding the limitation order on the manufacture of bronze meters by the War Production Board, now makes possible the presentation of the Pittsburgh Ironside Meter.” This is “a top quality disc meter in the construction of which over 70% of the bronze normally used in meters of this size has been eliminated. Rust-proofed cast iron and molded glass have been ingeniously substituted for bronze in the outer shell, register box and register lid.” “To meet the conditions in sections of the country where damage from freezing is likely to occur, this meter is equipped with a cast iron bottom plate especially designed so that should the water in the meter freeze, the pressure exerted by the expanding ice with break one or more of the lugs from the cast iron plate, thus allowing the vital working parts . . . to move freely with the expanding ice.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company, <i>Ironside Water Meter</i>, Bulletin W-535 (1942).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Water
label: Subject
content: World War II
label: related event
content: World War II
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Natural Resources
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content: Water Meters
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: A. A. Hirsch
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.325815
label: accession number
content: 245003
label: catalog number
content: 325815
objectType: label: Object Name
content: water meter
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: cast iron (overall material)