"Houston...we have a problem"

Flowie and Water Watch Sensors for Leak Detection and Water Management

www.water-controls.com combines advisory, consulting and project management expertise to help our clients save money and prevent water damage in buildings. We solve problems using technology developed by smart people and in using their technology hope to become significant with our clients.

One of the ways that we help is by using technology, specifically IoT sensors that give us insight that in turn we can share and act on.

1. We start with the installation of a Flowie from www.alertlabs.com on the main water meter to learn consumption patterns, get insight from the predicative flow indicators developed using AI and quantify how much water is leaking and for how long these events are lasting and;
2. We compliment this big picture look with the non-invasive Water Watch(?) sensor that gets installed on the outside of cold water risers. These sensors detect flow in the cold water risers of a building and will narrow down the specific riser lines where there is constant flow - providing more localized evidence of where the problems exist. This solution is also recommended to be installed on each toilet in the building. 

Graph 1. Dashboard of Billing Summary / % Time Leaking / Events for 30 Days (Source: Flowie)

From this we know how much money this building will spend this month on water (as developed from Alert Labs algorithm), what % of the time there is continuously running water (leaks) and the duration of this event. In this instance, the leak has been on-going since Dec 6th, 2020.

Graph 2: Water Usage over 30 Day Period (Source: Flowie)

• Total Volume over the period 2.5M L
• Average Volume per Day of 83,000 L
• Estimated Leak Volume of 824,000 L or approx 30% of Total

Graph 3: Viewing the problem in $'s not in Liters (Source: Flowie)

• Leak rate equates to $100 / day or $3,000 per month
• In this municipality, the cost of water and waste water combined is $4.29 / m3 or $0.016 / US Gallon

Ok so we know we're spending $10k per month on water and Flowie is telling us 30% of that is leaks that equal waste. There is a very strong likelihood that this excess water is going down the drain and does not represent a physical spill that is creating water damage. What further evidence exists to confirm this water loss. The next graph provides an indication of when water is used through the week (by day) and within each day (by hour).

Graph 4: Weekly Pattern of Consumption (Source: Flowie)

• Usage from midnight to 5 am (when people are sleeping) consistently at or above 2,000L / hour
• 2,000 L per hour is the equivalent of 333 flushes of a 6L toilet or 161 flushes of a 3L toilet. This data is sampled from 97 unit building made up of one and two bedrooms units. "Houston, we have a problem.."

In this example, our next layer of insight comes from the Water Watch(TM) sensors that are installed on the cold water risers in the building. Each cold water line is identified and then we affix a Water Watch(TM) sensor at or near the shut off. The sensor goes on the outside of the pipe and installs in a matter of seconds. No Plumbing. No water service disruption. The sensor can go on any size of pipe and reports into a gateway device which feeds the cloud with data about water flowing through the riser.

Graph 5 Daily review of Riser Flow Monitoring (Source: Water Watch(TM))

• Highlighted risers are predominantly serving bathrooms
• Red outline indicates leak activity. No outline indicates normal flow

Drilling down at an individual riser level (e.g. Riser # 18 - serving a bathroom line) we can see the rate of detected flow over a 24 hour period. In this example, the rate of flow is estimated at 3 GPM's which is on the high side for a bathroom line feeding six units

Graph 6 - Bathroom Riser over 24 Hour Period (Source: Water Watch(TM))

• Note nominal fluctuation in temperature between cold water in pipe and ambient temperature. See follow up graphs for variance with normal flow

Graph 7 - Kitchen Riser over 24 Hour Period (Source: Water Watch(TM))

• Consumption varies over 24 hr period with expected no flow periods overnight
• Temperature delta narrows as cold water sits in pipe during no-flow periods
• Temperature delta spikes as cold water coming into the building and through pipe is much colder than (A) ambient temperature and (B) water that has been sitting dormant for several hours
• This graph and temperature variance is indicative of "normal" flow with no leaks
• Ambient temperature varies from 74 to 78 degrees F
• Cold water temperature varies from 55 (during flow) to 75 (when standing) degrees F

So....lots of pictures, nice graphs and a bunch of data. Now what ?

Conclusions:

Both of these diagnostic tools are non-invasive and do not require the water to shut-down when installing.

The Flowie is a big picture tool to understand what is happening at the building level

The Water Watch sensors enable you to drill down to the specific riser. It is also available and recommended to be used on toilets to capture specific toilets that are running / leaking and costing money in the form of wasted water.

What we have learned from these tools:

1. If the Flowie has been properly set up and calibrated it is more accurate than the readings by the water utility. If it says you have a leak and/or continuously running water.... you do.
2. The Water Watch sensors validate the macro findings of the Flowie and allow you to define a path to solving the problem by isolating units on a particular riser. Bathroom risers are certainly more problematic with all fingers pointing at your toilets. We also incorporate the Flowie data into the Water Watch dashboard through an API feed to be able to look at the riser flow relative to the total building flow.
3. The toilets in your building are leaking. The older the inventory of toilets, the greater the number that are leaking. Its not a question of IF but HOW MANY are leaking.

To learn more visit www.water-controls.com or contact [email protected] or [email protected]   We would be happy to answer your questions and share more information.