Water Management

Watrtek are experts in assessing the health of condo and multi-unit residential buildings to help you manage your facilities’ water consumption using their integrated and sustainable solutions to impact your bottom line

Occupant behavior & Developing Sustainability Plans

Occupant behavior is always the unknown factor when developing sustainability plans for your condo or multi-residential building. It’s challenging to get your tenants to be mindful of their behaviors that result in wasteful or excessive overconsumption of our precious water resources.  Such occupant behaviour translates into higher building operating and maintenance costs due to greater loads on the building’s infrastructure.

Short of installing a sub-metering solution, requiring occupants to
Pay-Per-Use (PPU), there are a number of steps building owners can take to maximize the water efficiency in their buildings. The simplest to execute, but most difficult to translate into any measurable results is to try and involve tenants. The following chart identifies that the ease of measurement of “Occupant Behaviour” is the most difficult when trying to determine the impact a variable has on building performance.

“Figure 28: Variables categorized by ease of measurement and predicted” (importance https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/33339/3/Binkley_Clarissa_201211_MASc_thesis.pdf. (n.d.).)

Unfortunately, Canadians are indifferent when it comes to our water consumption and the environment – we have been spoilt. The abundance of our natural resources, including water, has passively encouraged our wasteful behaviors.

On average, we are some of the highest consumers of water of all developed countries, yet, despite the steep rise in water prices over the past ten years, Canada’s price for water is still among the lowest in the world.  It is easily apparent that water consumers and more importantly building owners, at any level, have virtually no control over this cost variable now and into the foreseeable future.

“Graphic showing water pricing versus water consumption. Canada’s price of water is among the lowest in the world and its consumption is among the highest. (Source: Polaris Water Project)”. (Sustainability, P. F. W. (2020, June 20). Canadians Rank Among World’s Top Water Hogs. Water Use & Conservation. https://waterbucket.ca/wuc/2015/08/13/canadians-rank-among-worlds-top-water-hogs/)

Unless occupants are incentivised to modify their in-suite water usage behavior, they will likely remain indifferent to change. This status-quo behavior will continue to negatively impact a building’s rising indoor water consumption, resulting in uncontrollable higher building operating costs. Nevertheless, raising occupant awareness should still be part of the overall plan to improve water efficiency. This includes activities related to frequent and consistent communications that raise the awareness of the impact their behavior has on the building’s water consumption and the environment.

Making your building smarter requires investing in innovative existing and new technologies that can reduce your utility consumption without requiring your tenants to “consciously” alter their behaviour. And given that in-suite potable water usage accounts for the greatest percentage of a building’s water consumption, any reduction in this usage will have a significant impact on your building’s operating metrics. In addition to savings realized through improved water usage efficiencies, the reduced load on the building’s infrastructure, fixtures and appliances translates into increased life of building assets by reducing the cycle of regular and preventative maintenance measures and thus adding to the bottom line by reducing maintenance cost and ultimately increasing the value of your building.

FMD – Eliminate Water Meter Inaccuracies

“It is a well-documented and researched fact, that there exist considerable amounts of air in municipal water pipelines. In fact, the entry, control, and release of air from pipelines are a major, though often, hidden problem in pipelines used for water supply…loss of carrying capacity and increased uncertainty on capacity. Air pockets reduce the effective pipe cross-section, which results, for large air pockets in a reduction in pipe capacity. Air can produce false readings on measuring devices”. (cite source here)

Every facility will have a variable set of conditions that affect the volume of air contained in their facility’s water pipes, impacting the level of “Laminar” and “Turbulent” flow that ultimately impacts their meter reading efficiency.

Metering inaccuracies, probably by far, have the most potential for lost water in measuring and recording flow. Water meters have changed little since their beginning and have a major fault in their design – air in your water pipes creates turbulence which increases the velocity of the water, causing the turbines on your water meter to turn faster than they should, thus your water meter records higher volumetric consumption than you are actually consuming.  

The Reynolds number

The following image highlights the key characteristics of the laminar and turbulent flow. Note that the flow velocity is higher in turbulent water flow than in laminar water flow. This again supports the fact that the FMD, by reducing the flow turbulence, affects the velocity by reducing it.

https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclearengineering/fluid-dynamics/reynolds-number/critical-reynolds-number

Watrtek Solutions 

Shower Flow Controllers

Benefits & Features

  • Effective: Swapping to high-flow shower heads has no impact on the flow rate of our Anti-Tamper Regulator
  • Anti-Tamper: Installed directly on the shower head water supply pipe in the wall so it is invisible to tenants. 
  • Control Flow & Pressure: The Anti-Tamper Regulator is pressure compensating to ensure proper water pressure.
  • No Maintenance: No need for maintenance checks for shower head
    swap-outs
  • Quick ROI: Typically between 1-2 years

 

%

Showers account for approximately 13% of indoor water usage

The average shower last 8.2 mins

The average shower uses 17.2 gallons or 65.1 litres

The average flow rate of a shower is about 2.1 gpm or 7.9 lpm

The Facts 

  • Water retrofits often include installing low-flow showerheads.
  • Showerhead swap out is an unsustainable retrofit solution – tenants will simply swap out the showerhead each time a low-flow showerhead is installed.
    • Why wouldn’t they?
    • Conservation is not top of their mind – They don’t PAY the bills. 
  • Like toilet leaks, maintenance must conduct regular building wide inspections to determine which showerheads have been swapped out – this approach is inefficient, ineffective and costly.
  • No way of quantifying how much excess shower usage is costing.
  • Increase in operating cost due to excessive water usage caused by high-flow shower heads
  •  Increase in operating cost due to inefficient use of maintenance resources. 
  • Increase in operating cost (gas & electricity) due to excessive hot water usage.

Address

35 The Links Road, Suite 201
Toronto, ON, M2P 1T7

Phone

416.814.6054

Email

smmarketing@watrtek.com

Social Media Giveaway Terms & Conditions

For these Terms and Conditions, "WatrtekPro" refers to **WatrTekPro** whose Twitter handle is @WatrtekPro Twitter Handle goes here. The "Prize" details are as follows:

  1. Water Leak Detection and Flood prevention for up to 3 toilets & 2 appliances
  2. Water Leak Detection and Flood prevention for up to 2 toilets & 1appliance
  3. Water Leak Detection and Flood prevention for 1toilet & 1appliances

By entering the “Giveaway” you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions. All entries must be received by midnight Eastern Standard Time by October 31, 2022. Three (3) winners will be selected at random by WatrtekPro on November 15, 2022, and the winners will be notified within 1 week of the draw.

WatrtekPros giveaways with entry via Instagram, Facebook (FB) and/or Twitter are open only to residents of Canada and the United States of America (USA). One (1) winner, for each giveaway, will be chosen at random from all entrants and across all platforms. No purchase necessary. Winners will not be required to pay to enter the giveaway. However, each winner will be responsible for the applicable shipping cost.

  • Entrants must be over 18 years old on their entry date.
  • Employees of WatrtekPro are not eligible to enter.
  • Instagram, FB and Twitter are not in any way affiliated or involved in the giveaway.
  • Only one entry per person will be accepted.

Each entrant shall be entered into the giveaway by telling us about their water leak/flood/damage experience on Instagram, FB, or Twitter and attaching their story to the hashtag #watrtekProtects. This is really a question for the Enso team…please jump in here

The Prize will be awarded to a randomly selected winner who has entered on Instagram, FB, or Twitter using a random number generator.

  • WatrtekPro will not be held liable if the named prize becomes unavailable or cannot be fulfilled.
  • WatrtekPro will not be held liable for any failure of receipt of entries.
  • WatrtekPro takes no responsibility for any entries which are lost, delayed, illegible, corrupted, damaged, incomplete or otherwise invalid. To the extent permitted by applicable law, WatrtekPro’s liability under or in connection with the giveaway or these terms and conditions shall be limited
    to the cost price of the Prize in question.
  • To the extent permitted by applicable law, WatrtekPro shall not be liable under or in connection with these terms and conditions, the giveaway or any Prize for any indirect, special or consequential cost, expense, loss or damage suffered by a participant even if such cost, expense, loss or damage was reasonably foreseeable or might reasonably have been contemplated by the participant and WatrtekPro and whether arising from breach of contract, tort, negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise.
  • Prizes are non-negotiable, non-transferable and non-refundable. No cash alternative is available. Where a Prize becomes unavailable for any reason, WatrtekPro reserves the right to substitute that prize for a prize of equal or higher value.
  • The name, address, email address and phone number of the winner must be provided to WatrtekPro if requested and will be shared to enable the
    fulfilment of the Prize.​
  • In the event of unforeseen circumstances beyond WatrtekPro’s reasonable control, WatrtekPro reserves the right to cancel, terminate, modify or
    suspend the giveaway or these terms and conditions, either in whole or in part, with or without notice.
  • WatrtekPro's decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.
  • The winner’s name and social media username may be posted on the social media profiles of WatrtekPro after the winner has been selected.