An $8,500 Water Bill on a Building Nobody Was Using

"We got an $8,500 bill... That's the only way we knew."

Someone I talked with recently, who works in property services and HVAC, said that during a demo. He was telling us about a property he used to manage.

The Empty Building

The property was vacant. A TV show had rented it, filmed there, and left. In his words: "They rented it from us and then they left."

Nobody was using the building.

Then the water bill showed up.

Nothing Running

He had been in and out of that building and never saw a thing. "There's no water running."

But the water was going somewhere. "There was a pipe externally somewhere that was doing that. It was just going into a drain and nobody ever knew about it until we got that bill."

That is what makes this kind of leak so hard to catch. Inside the building, everything looked normal. The problem was outside, running into a drain where no one was looking.

The Owner and the Utility

The owner's reaction was about what you would expect: "I'm not paying this bill."

And the utility's answer was just as predictable: "If you want water, you're going to pay this bill."

Neither reaction is surprising. The owner was looking at a bill for a building nobody was using, and the water had still gone through.

What Comes Next

Our co-founder, Dan Prescott, picked up from there and described what happens in a situation like this: "Then you're talking with the utility, you're begging for forgiveness and their leak forgiveness program and all that, right? You don't have to do it."

That is the part that happens after the bill, when the water is already gone.

The Right Move That Was Not Enough

He did the right thing. He was in and out of the building, and nothing was running. A walkthrough inside did not show it.

That is the part worth noticing. Checking the building is what a careful person does. It just cannot show you water that is leaving through a pipe outside, where nobody is looking.

Why Leaks Stay Invisible

Dan has seen the same pattern at other properties. In one case, a property manager was sure that a jump in overnight water use was just the cooling tower. Dan did not believe it, got a second meter put on the cooling tower line, and walked the manager through the data on a call. The cause turned out to be an irrigation leak at the back of the property, running into the storm drain.

Dan was clear that the manager was not careless: "This guy was a good property manager. He was trying to do his job. He just believed something that wasn't true because he had no visibility. He had no data."

That is the common thread. A careful person with no data still ends up guessing.

Dan has also described water as an invisible, unbounded cost risk. His example: toilets running 300 gallons an hour because a flapper didn't close. "There's no property damage. It's invisible water loss, but your cost risk is unbounded." Nothing floods and nothing alerts anyone, so nothing gets fixed until the bill arrives.

A vacant building makes the point even clearer. When nobody is using a building, any steady water use is a signal, but only if someone can see the consumption.

Why We Do What We Do

Dan put the whole thing in one line: "Water leaks are invisible right until you get something to give you visibility into consumption. That's why we do what we do, is exactly that scenario."

If you believe that nothing looks wrong means nothing is wrong, the bill is going to be the thing that tells you otherwise. It will be the first signal, and the only one.

The first alert you get should not be an invoice.

Where to Start

If you want to see how visibility into consumption changes that, you can book a call here.