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How is a water leak detected with consumption monitoring?

A water leak is detected with consumption monitoring by comparing the building's water consumption with the hours when no water should be used. In an apartment building, consumption falls close to zero at night. If the water meter turns as fast at three in the morning as at nine in the evening, something is leaking: a toilet, a tap, a heat exchanger or a pipe inside a structure. Continuous monitoring raises an alarm about this within days. Without monitoring, the leak appears on the water bill months later, or in the structures years later.

How the monitoring works

  1. A reader is connected to the water meter and sends the consumption to the monitoring hour by hourThe same is done for the heat and electricity meters.
  2. The building's normal consumption is learnedDuring the first weeks the monitoring sees what the building's usual day-time and night-time consumption is.
  3. Limits are setWe set limits for the building on the basis of its own consumption history, and a deviation from the limits produces an alarm.
  4. The alarm is interpretedThe monitoring looks at the shape of the consumption curve: a steady night-time flow points to a toilet or a tap, a sudden peak to a burst pipe, added make-up water in heat distribution to a leak in the heating network.
  5. The maintenance company receives a taskNot “water alarm” but “night consumption up by 40 litres per hour on three nights, probably a toilet, check stairwell B”.

What consumption monitoring detects and what it does not

It detects: leaking toilets and taps, a broken heat exchanger, a leak in the heating network through the make-up water, a device running at night, an exceptional consumption peak.

It does not detect: a leak whose consumption is smaller than the building's normal night-time variation, nor a leak in a device inside a flat if the flat has its own meter that is not monitored. These require flat-specific metering or a leak sensor.

What a leak costs

According to Motiva, a single leaking toilet can waste up to 260 cubic metres of water a year, which for a housing company can mean an extra bill of up to a thousand euros. A burst pipe inside a structure costs many times more than that with the repairs, and the price grows with every day the leak goes unnoticed.

Frequently asked questions

Does this require a new water meter?

Usually not. A pulse reader or an optical reader can be connected to most water meters. If the meter is an old mechanical one with no connection for a reader, it is replaced.

Does the same work for leaks in the heating network?

Yes. A leak in the heating network shows as additions of make-up water in the heat distribution and as a fall in pressure. Both are measured, and repeated filling raises an alarm.

Who receives the alarm?

HK-Säätö's monitoring first, and it forwards an interpreted task to the maintenance company and the information to the property manager. Everything is visible in Kiinteistöpilvi. Energiavahti