Improving water quality and hygiene with the CONTI+ CNX water management system

Background to the project

The client in this case is a secondary school in the Bristol region which has around 2,000 pupils across four sites. It had poor water quality and was looking for a solution to that along with other water management challenges that it faced including in particular the high labour cost associated with water quality maintenance – a team of four were required to travel daily between sites to flush the taps and showers every morning and evening.

The school had previously tried chemical flushing on a dosing system as well as many hours of manual flushing but neither of these options had solved its water quality problems and the issue of labour intensiveness remained also.

In 2018 the school’s facilities management provider engaged with the CONTI+ team to consider installation of the CONTI+ CNX water management system as well as other CONTI+ products at the school. The CONTI+ team worked with the school over the next year to understand the specific challenges that they were facing and then was able to make several recommendations.

Phase one – Installation of self-flushing taps and showers plus CNX water management system

In the first instance it was recommended that the school install self-flushing taps and showers in order to keep water moving throughout the building, particularly in the underused areas. Then the CONTI+ water management system was recommended to solve the problem of highly labour intensive maintenance.

• The water management installation project was signed off in summer 2018 and a local contractor was employed to carry out the installation after visiting the CONTI+ head office in Germany for training.
• 400 taps and showers from the CONTI+ range were installed throughout the school’s buildings.
• Central controllers along with site-wide wiring and interface converters were installed prior to the commissioning of the CNX system.
• Each product was set up with its own protocols according to its particular requirements, whether flushing regimes for regular hygiene purposes or thermal flushes for higher hygiene demands.

The commissioning phase took several months of minor adjustments by the onsite engineers to ensure that flushing was phased in different areas and executed when required at the correct temperatures for the correct length of time.

By mid 2019 the system was up and running and water auditors attended the site to test water quality. They found that the water was in a very safe condition and so installation of the CNX water management system had achieved its primary objective.

Phase two – additional training and functionality

Once the system was commissioned and configured correctly, then the site engineer responsible for compliance requested further training on the remote access options for controlling the water system. Training was provided which then enabled him to connect to the water management system from anywhere in the world and control all four systems via the internet.

Benefits of the CONTI+ CNX system to the client

• The system provides full reports on every installed tap, shower or other product detailing all actions so engineers can identify any problems or issues such as water call off points not used frequently and text alerts can be sent to engineers to investigate any faults reported.
• The system also provides full reports on the hygiene and thermal flushing regime to ensure that ACOP measures are recorded, saving many hours of labour and providing improvements to the environment as well as financial savings.
• The system has a built in safety system to ensure that hot temperature flushes cannot be conducted during school opening hours in order to protect users from scalding.
• Access to the system can be configured to different levels according to the specific needs of different groups of users.
• The CONTI+ system can provide outputs via its API to third party platforms such as BMS to help FM providers use a single platform for building management.

What the client says

Personally, from a user point of review, I feel the WMS system is accessible for the engineer type of person and simple to operate. The daily use of the system once set up correctly is great and has helped to combat L8 issues in which we were previously encountering.

The commissioning of the system can be a benefit and considered as an ongoing process and has potential with specialists in the commissioning side to scale back flushing and reduce water wastage.

The remote access of the WMS has meant that we can control the system, from our phones, tablets, or PC. During the Covid closure period we recognised that the system kept the water system in perfect condition and when re-opening the premises, we had no issues.

Overall, the project has been successful, and I am happy with the product from an engineering and compliance perspective. The customer service provided by Conti+ was excellent.

Additional features of the CONTI+ CNX Water Management System

• Visual live status accessible 24/7/365 days a year
• Individual bespoke control on each product connected or group of products
• Remote access online to manipulate controls without the need of being on site
• Full product reports downloadable as CSV, Excel or PDF
• Reports provide full documented information date, time and details on product, converter, activity, and time to support auditing
• Environmental benefits from reduced travel, reduced fuel costs, and lower labour requirements
• Automated hygiene flushing and thermal flushing regimes
• Complete flexibility to time flow control to the second
• Fault diagnosis and reporting
• API output to 3^rd party platforms
• Automatic software updates online
• No software licence fees