Key Takeaways:
With smart technology installed in plumbing systems and restrooms, managers can turn their attention to tapping into the data these sensors capture. Closing the loop on the organization’s investment in smart plumbing and restroom technology requires that managers turn the data into tangible benefits for their facilities and their organizations’ bottom lines.
“The most useful data seems to be the kind that helps facility managers understand safety and performance — things like water loss, temperature, pressure, flow, disinfectant residuals,” says James Dipping, P.E., senior principal and plumbing engineering discipline lead, with Stantec. “When you get to look at all those categories together, it may be easier to spot patterns and confirm that control measures are working. Control measures are a big part of water management plans to make sure you’re operating within the parameters to keep the building safe.”
One area of low-hanging fruit involves leak detection and monitoring for many plumbing systems and restrooms that are aging and often poorly maintained.
Rajat Malhotra, global lead of engineering operations for data centers and critical environments management at JLL, says such measures often involve “water-leak-detection systems in data centers or critical spaces, monitoring of tank levels to ensure autofilling of service tanks from storage tanks, smart water meters to monitor consumption and track measures to meet sustainability and water consumption targets. If the business is signed up for net zero targets or science-based targets, net zero goals, then facility managers and maintenance engineers are required to monitor the consumption.”
Beyond targeting specific needs in plumbing systems and restrooms, managers also can use the data to develop broader strategies that target the improved long-term performance of plumbing systems and restrooms.
“It’s important to have the documentation and be able to respond when something goes off track,” Dipping says. “Even further, one can use these data points to create fault detection diagnostics. It’s often used on the HVAC side, but it’s not used on the plumbing side. It can help facilities managers not waste time trying to find where the problem is. Those automation fault detection diagnostics can point them in that direction very quickly.
“A good example would be watching that recirculation loop for temperatures that could pose a Legionella risk, tracking disinfectant residuals and potable water, or using flow trends to spot leaks and unusual consumption.”
Data applications also can help managers target problems that carry real-time safety concerns for building occupants.
“Legionella control codes of practice recommend that the (water) temperature be maintained above 140 degrees Fahrenheit at hot water outlets to prevent an outbreak,” Rajat says. “The relevant data would be biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, pH and ammoniacal nitrogen, depending on whether the water is to be discharged to a municipal sewage system or to a water body. These data points can be monitored, recorded and trended by facility managers through advanced real-time monitoring systems.”
Managers can further use system data to fulfill the ever-increasing demands for compliance information related to water management plans, which are becoming more common in a growing number of states.
“Reporting and trend data are important, especially if managers want the technology to support any type of compliance,” Dipping says. “We’re seeing legislation on the books that require water management plans. We’re also starting to see some insurance companies getting involved with upholding policies to make sure that people are compliant with water management and to make sure that they’re compliant with their insurance requirements — even long-term operations, not just day-to-day monitoring.
“For example, a facility manager can set up alerts for temperature or flow changes so that maintenance staff can investigate quickly and document the response as part of the water management program.”
Given the complexity of many facility operations and the advanced technology involved in smart plumbing systems and restrooms, it is no surprise that managers run into hurdles and make mistakes as the explore the most effective way to implement smart technology. Dipping points to the ongoing importance of the human element in the process.
“One blind spot is thinking that the system can now resolve itself and that you don’t have to maintain a system,” he says. “The smart technology might help you key in on maintenance patterns. The smart technology might help you key in on control points and things like that, but you still have to have competent people within your building to fix problems.
“You still have to know what those limitations and what those control points and set points need to be to keep a building safe. It can’t do that for you. You really need the right people and the right team. for a competent water management plan in order for all of this to really be successful.”
Rajat says managers also make the process more difficult by putting too much emphasis on the potential costs to their organizations.
“Most definitely they still think it is too expensive, or they think it is only for large sites and too expensive for a small site,” he says. “A lot of managers, and rightfully so, are sensitive obviously to workforce. So either it’s too expensive, not suitable for my site, or they say, ‘It’s going to replace all of my cleaning staff. Tomorrow, the client is going to ask for a reduction in the cleaning staff.’ That’s not true. “This technology can help us improve the user experience.”
The true bottom line on smart plumbing and restrooms is that it provides managers with yet another tool to achieve the most important goal for their departments — providing effective maintenance of facility components and equipment.
“The real value of smart plumbing technology may be that it could help facilities spot risks sooner,” Dipping says. “It can help facilities respond faster and manage water systems with a level of consistency that manual processes can’t do. You just cannot get the level of data doing this manually that you can with an automated system, whether it’s the amount of sensors, the amount of data that you collect or just how often you do it. Smart plumbing technology exceeds at all of those different levels.”
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
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