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Instruction, Sub Metering

What Else Do Your Sensors Do?

By on

June 18, 2021

- Instruction, Sub Metering

Our leak detection systems offer more than just what the name suggests.

They prevent floods, but they are able to offer a great amount of value through their other capabilities as well.

Water Insights

In commercial and multi-residential buildings, with so many sources of water usage, it’s challenging to track your water use.

With our suite of products, we are able to offer granular water insights throughout the building.

Our Water Streamer attaches directly to your water meter, providing you with direct water insights right from your meters. Our upcoming Water Trickler will connect to water lines, such as cold water risers, to provide insight as it relates to consumption and continuous flow to identify leaks and continuous flow. 

For a more granular approach, sub metering provides you with precise insights into the water use patterns of each tenant or unit.

With our Water Sniffers, you’ll also be able to detect if there are any leaks in the functional parts of your building that may not be visited often, such as mechanical rooms and elevator pits. This can help with early detection of leaks or floods.

Planned Upgrades

By looking closely at where water is being used the most, or where leaks are beginning to form, it provides you with close insight into which parts of your building can use upgrades next. 

For example, if Water Sniffers are installed and you start noticing the hot water riser that feeds the shower often has pin holes, you should probably consider a riser replacement schedule in your next budget to help manage your risk.

As another example, if a Water Streamer is installed on your main water meter and you start noticing an influx of water consumption, it might be time to start looking at toilet upgrades.

Building Protection

By preventing floods, you are protecting your building in many ways. You are protecting yourself from the stress due to floods, and you are protecting your building integrity. 

Oftentimes when a leak or flood occurs, without a leak detection system, it may not be noticed, especially in areas in the backend of a building. If they are not noticed, the building could undergo undue degradation and wear from waterlogging.

Improved Cap Rates

By investing in a leak detection system, you’re investing in the future of your building. You’re both improving the modernization of your building, reducing the workload on your employees, and you’re protecting your building from damaging floods. This can help improve your building’s portfolio, improving your cap rates. 

In short, our sensors do more than just prevent floods. They offer a myriad of benefits that can improve the value of your building, and make life better for your employees and tenants. If you’d like to learn more about how our systems can help you, contact us today.
Sincerely,
Your Connected Sensors Team
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Instruction, save money, Sub Metering

How Does a Flood Prevention System Help Me as a Property Manager?

By on

May 10, 2021

- Instruction, save money, Sub Metering

If you are a property manager or a superintendent, you may be asking yourself: how does a flood prevention system help me?

Let’s take a look at how flood prevention systems can help you, the building manager.

Prevention is easier to manage than floods

With a Connected Sensors system, we make prevention simple. Our dashboard gives you access to an overview of all the systems, and you’ll receive text and email alerts as soon as a flood is detected.

Without flood prevention, a flood can be a difficult event for a property manager or superintendent to deal with. The source of the flood needs to be found, valves need to be shut off, and tenants in affected areas need to be alerted. Once the flood has been stopped, the source requires repair, and then any damaged infrastructure needs to be repaired. Repairing damaged infrastructure can be a lengthy and costly process.

Flood prevention systems also provide water insights

In addition to providing you with water alerts, our flood prevention system is also able to give you an overview of your total building water consumption. 

First, our product line includes items such as our Water Streamer, which can connect directly to water meters to provide you with live readings of your water. This can help you as the property manager monitor your water usage, helping you find improvements to lower your water bill. 

Secondly, monitoring your water assists in determining future infrastructure upgrades, helping you prepare budgets for your condo board.

Thirdly, with our systems you can consider implementing submetering in your tenant’s spaces. With submetering, you can closely monitor the water usage of each tenant, and encourage responsible water usage by charging each tenant individually for their water. 

Our dashboard also provides you with a full overview of your building at all times, giving property managers a high-level overview at your fingertips. 

Happier tenants lead to a happier property manager

By preventing floods, you increase tenant satisfaction by ensuring there are no disruptions to either their workplace or living space. By utilizing early prevention over shutoffs, you also reduce the chances of shutting down water supply, which is highly disruptive to tenants. 

Preventing floods is important for property management, building owners, and tenants. For building owners, it helps reduce the chances of costly repairs associated with floods, and for tenants, it reduces the chances of inconvenient interruptions. If you want to learn more about how a flood prevention system can help you, contact us today!
Sincerely,
The Connected Sensors Team
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Sub Metering, utility costs

How Much Water Do We Use?

By on

March 26, 2021

- Sub Metering, utility costs

If you want to save water through a flood management system, you may be asking yourself: how much water does my commercial building use? How about my home?

Here are a few usage facts that may shed some light onto this question.

Water Usage in Commercial Buildings


According to RealPac Canada, the best practice range for water usage in the commercial sector is 12 to 50 L/ft2/yr. “If every building in the study met the high end of the proposed Best Practice Range (50 L/ft2 /yr), a potential savings of 2.5 billion litres would be possible in Canada. In Ontario alone, the savings would total 1.6 billion litres, and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions could total 240,000 kgCO2e/yr as a direct result of the reduction in energy needed to pump and treat water.”

It’s estimated in commercial buildings that each employee uses 59 litres per employee per working day, though the amount varies based on the age of the building and the climate at its location.

Water Use at Home


In Canada, our average use per capita is 251 liters, which is one of the highest in the world. In the average home, 65% of this occurs in the bathroom, 10% in the kitchen, and 20% in laundry. In comparison, the US’s average usage per day is 60 gallons (227 Liters). This is broken down into 64 gallons (242L) in the bathroom per household, 29 gallons (109L) in the kitchen per household, and 18 gallons (64L) of leaks! A leaking toilet alone can waste up to 200,000L per year.

In older homes without high-efficiency appliances, usage is higher. Older shower heads can use 20L of water per minute, while new showerheads cannot exceed 9.5L of water per minute.

Significant amounts go into each load of laundry. Each load uses 94L, compared to a shower using an estimated 40L and a dishwasher load using 23L.

If you are a condo building owner, these numbers in each individual condo unit add up quickly. In some cases such as in the City of Ottawa, municipalities are moving towards a tiered system for water billing, which may base charges off of bulk meters. It is important to closely monitor your water usage to keep your bill down. Submetering is also an option to transfer the costs of water to tenants. 

In conclusion, hydro bills add up quickly, and it’s important to monitor each area of consumption to reduce your overall use.

 

Sincerely,
 
The Connected Sensors team

 

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Sub Metering

Why Consider Water Submetering?

By on

January 21, 2021

- Sub Metering

How can water submetering impact my business?

While reviewing a proposal with a client a few weeks ago we were asked this question. We thought we would share with you all what we answered:

From our perspective, water submetering can help alter the habits of your tenants and motivate them to think like a landlord. The hard reality is when a tenant does not pay for their own utilities, they are a lot less aware and carefree of their water usage. Thus, by adding sub metering to your building, this will increase the level of awareness surrounding energy-savings and equipment lifecycle which will contribute to even greater savings for the whole building.

Water sub meters allow landlords to collect tenants’ energy use and provide data so they can monitor behaviour in a transparent way. At Connected Sensors, we are a big proponent of water sub metering as aligns with our 3 objectives.

 
Here is how you can Save Money, Save Your Building, and Save the Planet: 

It helps find like-minded tenants who also want to save money

Tenants who watch their pocket book will often be ready to pay a bit more in rent in exchange for being able to manage their own utility costs. On top of receiving accurate water bills, tenants are able to see their own data for their space.

It helps with the equipment life cycle thus helps save your building

With real-time water data, tenants have immediate feedback regarding their water bill and their energy consumption. With any big or small behavioural change, tenants are able to witness the direct effects on their bill. This positive response will motivate tenants to make simple adjustments to their everyday life from taking shorter showers to turning the faucet off when brushing your teeth.

It helps save the planet by reducing energy usage

Corporate responsibility is becoming a more important component within every organization. Many companies, property managers, building owners, and tenants like to understand their effect and impact towards creating a more sustainable planet. Sub metering allows insight into when and how energy is consumed, allowing the decision-makers to find inefficiencies and take necessary action to curb waste.

If you have any questions about how to incorporate water submetering into your building, do not hesitate to contact us and we would be happy to assist you. 
Sincerely,
Your Connected Sensors Team
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