Water leaks: ensure your organisation isn’t pouring money down the drain

Water leaks, if undetected, can result in your organisation being landed with an unexpected and large water bill – not to mention reduced water pressure and the possibility of damage to your equipment or property.

Below we have outlined some ways that business owners and facilities managers can try to prevent and quickly identify leaks.

Preventing water leaks

• Purchase an automatic leak detector that will shut down the water supply if unusual water consumption is detected
• Provide correct levels of thermal insulation to avoid the risk of pipework freezing
• Consider trace heating (system used to maintain or raise the temperature of pipes and vessels) to avoid frozen pipes
• If pipes regularly leak consider investing in new pipes as opposed to continuously repairing old ones
• Do regular checks on all equipment and pipework.

Spotting a leak

• Attach data loggers to water meters to alert you of any anomalies in water consumption by e-mail or SMS
• ‘Benchmark your water use’ to compare your water consumption with that of other companies in your sector. If you’re using a lot more than similar sized organisations you may have an undetected leak. We will publish a post which focuses on benchmarking – you can subscribe by filling out your e-mail address in the box at the right to keep updated on new blog posts.
• Engineers can use specialist equipment such as leak noise correlators to pinpoint water leaks.

For more info on any of the above please don’t hesitate to contact us on info@businesscostconsultants.co.uk

If you have any further tips please leave them to help other organisations.