Preventing Water Damage with Remote Sensors
Crime is not the only threat to a business’ buildings, equipment, and inventory. The wrong temperature or humidity can damage sensitive products and almost everything is vulnerable to water damage if water gets into the wrong place.
I have heard from several clients about exactly this issue. One told me about a second-story toilet cistern that ran all weekend and overflowed required renovating a whole wing of a school building. A leaky water fountain pipe at a restaurant required removing an entire wall for mold mitigation. The worst story I’ve heard was of multi-family apartment complex which had several attic pipes freeze during an unusual cold snap; when they thawed, water ran down through three stories of apartments. After covering damaged tenant property, renovating their buildings, and covering increased insurance premiums for the rest of their portfolio, the costs of the leaks ran well into the millions.
Luckily, just as networked cameras help provide deterrence and resolution of criminal cases, networked sensors are an increasingly cost-effective option for rapidly detecting and addressing environmental changes before they can cause significant damage.
HOW IT WORKS
Small sensors can be placed in key locations for monitoring. They can detect water, assess humidity, measure temperature, track air quality, detect vibration and perform a variety of other checks.
They use Bluetooth to communicate with an internet-connected gateway. Data is buffered in case of internet outages. From the data cloud, visualizations and dashboards are available out of the box. Parameters for notification can be set and notifications can be sent by text, email, or app push.
RESPONSE
Of course, notifications still require a response to be effective. Being aware of a flooding building is cold comfort if you can’t do anything about it. These notifications give property owners and managers the ability to respond as soon as possible.
When paired with IP security cameras, sensor alerts can be quickly verified and escalated to the proper priority. When water is visible, maintenance crews can be rerouted, water can be shutoff, and plumbers called to get the underlying issue fixed as quickly as possible.
Even without video verification, water detected somewhere it shouldn’t be will be a high-priority item for any warehouse operator or facilities lead.
REDUNDANCY
Redundancy is another reason to consider having security professionals install and manage your sensor system. Because these notifications require internet connectivity, mission-critical sensors should be supported with back-up power and communications.
Backup batteries, cellular communications, cloud storage, and system downtime notifications are all standard considerations for video surveillance systems. And while many clients do not need full comms and power backups (forvideo or sensors), the systems should be designed intentionally to make sure important tradeoffs aren’t compromised just to shave a few dollars off the bid.
WHO SHOULD USE SENSORS?
Sensor technology has gotten cheaper, more reliable, and easier to install, widening the use cases for it. Nonetheless, there are still some costs associated with it. It isn’t yet cheap enough yet to monitor every toilet cistern and sink cabinet. ROI forecasts are difficult for long-tail losses. So, how do we make intelligent decisions about where to deploy sensors?
In assessing whether a sensor is useful, we use the 3 Vs:
Visibility - Is the site or system visible to staff or customers? Are people often in the area? Or does the site go weeks or months without eyes-on?
Value - Is the property or inventory valuable? Is it costly to repair? Will water damage cost you a few hundred dollars or a few million? More?
Vulnerability - Are there factors that make damage more likely? Overhead water pipes, uninsulated water pipes, outdoor locations, enclosures with high duty cycles, extreme temperature swings, poor drainage, local flooding, ?
If at least two Vs overlap, sensors are worth considering.
Areas with only a single V are of lower priority to monitor. A site that isn’t visible can withstand some extra water if it isn’t costly to replace or isn’t vulnerable to water damage anyway. Valuable property and inventory should be protected, but if it is regularly viewed by staff or customers and doesn’t have (for example) water pipes overhead, sensors are probably not the way to protect it. Likewise, something vulnerable to water or humidity doesn’t matter much if it will be visible anyway and isn’t something that will incur expensive repairs.
CONCLUSION
If you would like to consider protecting your property with sensors, please get in touch! Assessments and estimates are free within our service area.