Lack of clean drinking water is a growing challenge worldwide, and it is crucial that we become better at managing our water resources responsibly. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, CSRD, EU taxonomy and building certification schemes all focus on reducing and streamlining water consumption as well as reducing wastage.

Not everyone associates water with C02 emission but in fact reducing your water consumption can significantly reduce your carbon footprint as well. This is because water is pumped up from underground, transported to and from our buildings and purified before being led back into the sea. This process requires energy. Therefor responsible consumption of water also reduces CO2 emissions from water management.

Up to 20 percent of all toilets leak and a toilet can leak as much as 275 litre per day without being heard or seen visibly. In the pursue of water efficiency, leaking toilets are therefore an obvious area to focus on. The Aguardio Leak Sensor is easy to install. The sensor immediately monitors water consumption in toilets and can contributes to the certification of construction and buildings in operation.

The leak sensor detects leaks as small as 3 litres per hour (as tested independently by the leading Danish test institute Teknologisk Institut). When a leak is detected, the Sensor emits a digital or an audible alarm.

The sensor is so effective that customers choose to turn off the alarm in the first weeks, due to the number of leaking toilets and thus the number of alarms. Many toilets can be leaking significantly over a year but perhaps not every day – toilets can leak on/off, depending on factors such as the type of toilet and mineral build up in the pipes.

With the data from leak sensor customers can monitor the development of the total leak situation in their “toilet population” in buildings and thereby work on optimising service and maintenance plans and follow how the leak situation develops over time.

More than just a leak sensor

Leak Sensors are developed to monitor toilets, but the data from the sensors can be used for much more than just toilet maintenance.

Temperature monitoring

The Aguardio Leak detection unit is capable of providing temperature monitoring for hot and cold and mixed water connections within your building and providing reports to the cloud in a number of visual ways to allow clients to view and download the reports. 

Building managers in the UK have to complete water temperature checks and record this on regular, weekly, monthly and quarterly routines. This is normally carried out in person by somebody running taps for a pre-determined period of time, 2-3 minute flow time is not unusual for hot, then cold to confirm that cold water is below 22 degrees and hot is stored above 60 degrees and achieves 50 degrees at point of use (55 degrees in healthcare).

The Aguardio system can be installed in such a way as to provide automated reports on the temperature of hot, cold and mixed water connections throughout your facilities, saving significant amounts of both labour and water.

Space management

For example at campsites sensors can be used to plan which and how many of the campsite’s toilet buildings will be in use. This is possible using the data from the leak sensor, which tells the campsite owners when and how much the toilets are used via the estimates on number of flushes per toilet.

By closing the toilet buildings to the redundant toilet buildings, lower costs for cleaning and heating the toilet buildings are achieved, without compromising customer service.

Strategic maintenance

By collecting data for when toilets start to leak, facilities managers begin to accurately foresee maintenance needs. This allows strategically planned maintenance instead of handling the toilets individually when a leak occurs.

Strategically planned maintenance is more cost-effective than individually handling. At the same time, it provides better workflows for the technical staff.

Strategic reduction targets

Many facilities managers these days are interested in water conservation. Up to 20 per cent (or more, in older buildings) of toilets are leaking. For many building owners there will a significant potential for water reduction, which can be included in the company’s strategic reduction targets.

Leak sensors collect data and thus provide an input to consumption overview when companies need to provide annual documentation for water reduction.

Reduce water usage by installing shower sensors

Aguardio’s Shower Sensor helps to reduce water consumption through behaviour change by direct interaction with the user. Must people agree that spending time in the shower is a lovely experience. But the experience can change with the awareness of the consequences of the long shower. It is both expensive and unnecessarily consumes the earth’s water resources.

An average shower takes 7.1 minutes (average interval often 6-8 minutes). But even first 2-3 minutes of water flowing can be enough for the body to be clean. The shower sensor detects the exact bath time and displays it while you are in the shower.

UK universities like University of Surrey and Cranfield University have analyzed the effect of the Shower Sensor on behaviour. The reporting shows that the showering time was reduced by 21.27% in tourism/hospitality and up to 30% in homes (even 33% in student accommodation), which means reduced shower durations of often 2-3 minutes when the solution is used as specified.

The data about shower behavior (e.g. when and how being showered incl. shower duration, e.g. do people pause water while soaping/using shampoo) and the development can be used for reporting, estimations of usage of water and energy from showering, following-up and changing behaviour further.

More than just a shower sensor

Mold prevention

The shower sensor measures both temperature and humidity in the room. Therefore, it can be used to monitor the risk of mold. The risk of mold to occur rises when the humidity rises above 70-75 per cent. To prevent mold it is essential that the bathroom is sufficiently ventilated to keep down the humidity. If the humidity rises above 70-75 per cent for a long period of time, it will appear on data overview from the Shower Sensor. This allows the resident or technical staff to know when ventilation is needed.

Mold is harmful to health and at the same time the cost of renovation due to mold is high. Renovation costs also can be significant due to mold.