Water monitoring, Wastage & Leak Detection, and Resolution

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Water monitoring, Wastage & Leak Detection, and Resolution

Our built environment of the '60's is now past 50years old and much of it is reaching the end of its design life. Witness the many burst pipes being repaired by our Municipal Water departments.

What about pipes your side of the meter - being smaller in diameter a leak from an underground pipe on your property can seep away without being noticed, unlike the waters rushing down our streets.

Does your Managing Agent / Caretaker offer Early detection with Real-Time Monitoring & Alerts? If not, click here to find one that does

What is the cost of a water leak?

An open tap running at 15 litres per minute will consume 650 kilolitres in a month. Joburg's tariff for domestic water use for consumption greater than 40kl per month is R8-50 per kl. So a burst 20mm pipe underground could cost you R5 000 to R10 000 or more per month.

In the Commercial and Industrial world 50mm pipes are not uncommon. A burst pipe could consume over 2000kl and cost more than R20 000 per month.

How many months does it take to detect a hidden leak?

Most residential property owners "observe" their consumption when paying their Water & Lights Account. But one tends to know the Rand amount (who knows their daily average consumption in kilolitres? ) and tariff escalations make it difficult to track mentally. Furthermore Water consumption readings fluctuate because of seasonality, reading period variations and many other variables. Until a leak turns into a burst pipe, A monthly Account "observation" can be a deceptive and costly method of detection, and slow leaks can go undetected for ages.

For Commercial and Communal properties that record and compare Account readings on computer there are delays between detection and corrective action. Picture the reactions below of Trustees of a Sectional Title Property to a change in their Water Account.

There are delays between the start of the leak and of:

- reading of the meter ;

- the Managing Agent receiving a Statement;

- presentation to the next monthly meeting of the

Body Corporate.

Further delays of disbelief, digesting and explaning away, turn to reaction and then into action to detect and repair the leak.

Account Monitoring can take 3-4months to detect a leak and repair it, as illustrated above.

No sooner have you fixed the leak, when the water pressure builds up and pops the pipe somewhere down the line - undetected.

Are you going to wait for your meter to be read next month and the account mailed to you the following month => 3 to 4 months before you find out you have a R15k to R60k water bill ? Get real.

Real-Time Flow Monitoring

We monitor your water consumption real-time.

We can pick up a leak within 24 hours to a few days, alert and despatch a plumber to resolve it before you know.

Leak detection becomes compelling - you know there is a leak and how big it is.

This service is available anywhere there is a signal - throughout South Africa, the rest of Africa and the globe.

To place an enquiry please submit your details in the . form below and we will contact you:

How does Real-time Water Flow Monitoring work?

In seeking to minimise operating costs a proactive approach to reducing wastage is required. To facilitate early leak detection one needs to monitor water consumption real-time and be able to analyse the records for comparative step changes.

To obtain the data we install a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) and a Reed Sensor on the incoming water supply’s Pulse meter. Each RTU has an independent battery back-up and is mains-, battery- or solar-powered depending on the available power supply.

The RTU transmits the data to servers managed on your behalf by Beyond Wireless, our local wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication solutions provider with a global reach.

Should water consumption fall outside of predetermined norms, an automatic SMS and or e-mail notifies the relevant person/s of the water wastage (which could be due to a leak, or simply a tap being left open). The alarm is then investigated and the necessary corrective action taken.

Early leak detection is enabled, which in turn prevents or reduces possible flood damage and minimises the increased water consumption costs caused by a leak.

For more information on How it works, click here

A Case in point

JSE-listed Redefine Properties, created from the recent merger between Redefine Income Fund with ApexHi and Madison, has a massive property portfolio, with the asset management portion being handled in-ouse and the property management being outsourced to a specialist property management company, Broll. The management of this portfolio entails coordinating all activities relating to the management of a building, from leasing to renewals, rent collection, budgeting and maintenance etc.

Seeking to minimise operating costs, Redefine aims to reduce wastage and accordingly keeps a close tab on electricity and water consumption in its buildings.

In order to facilitate early leak detection, prevent wastage and minimise costs, as well as to ensure accurate and timeous water meter readings, Redefine has contracted local wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication solutions provider, Beyond Wireless, to monitor water consumption at various properties in the Redefine portfolio.

Beyond Wireless offers a managed turn-key solution that makes affordable, scalable, real-time monitoring and control of remote and mobile assets possible

To read more click here

To Contact Us

Kindly submit your details on the form >>

and we will contact you soonest.

or else:

Tel : 083 269 7796 - ask for Alan

Fax: 086 605 5611

e-mail : sales@gorbiproducts.co.za

What does it cost?

An RTU costs R11 334 installed in major centres (Jhb, Pta, Dbn & CT), and the transmission and monitoring is provided for a monthly fee of R600.

You might need to install pulsed flow meters if you site does not have them, although they are fairly commonly found in the field. We can contract the services of dedicated plumbers to you if required.

The benefits of the Beyond Wireless water monitoring system make it an exceptionally effective solution that is simple to deploy and use.

We invite you to cut your losses and submit an enquiry: