Come on then Wally, how did you get your results?
OK. Two points to apologise for in advance:
1 - I use a trolley system.
2 - I used to be a maths and physics teacher.
I set this as a problem for my 15-year-old son and me to solve together: How can I measure and then calculate the water flow rate on my trolley. He worked out the method with a bit of guidance. He then did the measurements and calculations.
1 - He placed a barrel onto my bathroom scales and noted the mass. m
12 - He then set the machine running at the setting I wanted to test for 10 minutes - just letting the water spray over the garden. (I have stop watches from my previous business.)
3 - He then noted the new mass of the barrel. m
2As 1 litre of water has a mass of 1 kg, it was easy to calculate the flow rate from the change in mass divided by 10.
Flow rate = (m
1 - m
2)/10 (litres/minute)
We did it for 10 minutes to get one decimal place more accuracy. This was the main point of the exercise.
Accuracy of timing, +/- 1 second in 600 seconds = 0.16%
Accuracy of mass measurements +/- 0.1 kg in 25 kg = 0.4%
Total confidence in answer = +/- 0.6%
Had we only measured for 1 minute, the accuracy would have been +/- 2%
I really must get out more!
I also did pretty much the same as you, and got pretty much the same results - within the limits of experimental accuracy.