Water damage: cheapest before it happens.

What does water damage cost?

Water damage is an everyday matter in Swedish buildings: insurers receive tens of thousands of claims every year, at costs in the billions. An average claim in an apartment sits around one hundred thousand kronor, and even then it is not usually the money that stings most.

It is the knock-on costs: excesses and depreciation deductions that are not covered, residents who have to be moved out during drying and refurbishment, disputes about where responsibility divides between association and member, and premiums that rise after the claim. An association with recurring water damage notices it in its insurance terms for many years.

Where does the damage happen?

In the apartments, kitchens and bathrooms dominate, with dishwashers, fridges and freezers and old waterproofing among the common causes. That is mainly caught with routines and with drip trays under the appliances.

For the association as property owner there is another category: the communal areas where a lot of water passes and nobody spends time. Hot water heaters, heating substations, laundry rooms, boiler rooms and long pipe runs in the basement. A leak there can run for a long time before anyone happens to see it, and it is precisely the time that decides the size of the damage. A leak found the same day means drying the floor. The same leak after three weeks is floors broken up, dehumidifiers running for months and an insurance claim.

Early detection: how it works

The basic problem in plant spaces is that water can turn up anywhere along a long stretch. A spot sensor on the floor only senses the water that reaches it, and by the time it does the leak may already be large.

A leak detection cable solves that by sensing water along its whole length. The cable is run where water can appear, around the heater, through the heating substation, along the pipe run, and a single loop watches the entire stretch. The cable connects to a wireless transmitter, so the installation needs no other cabling.

In the event of a leak the system raises the alarm in the property's portal, so that the board or the property manager can act the same day rather than when the damage becomes visible. No automatic shut-off device is included: the alarm is early enough for a person to shut off the water and deal with it. That is how leak detection works in Propeye, in the same portal as the property's energy solutions.

A preventive routine for the association

1. Take stock of the risk points. Go through the plant spaces and the basement: where does water pass, and how quickly would a leak be found today?

2. Put detection on the risk points. A leak detection cable in the plant spaces, and drip trays under appliances in the apartments as part of the association's advice to its members.

3. Decide the alarm route. Who sees the alarm, who goes out and who shuts off the water. An alarm with no recipient is not a routine.

4. Follow up annually. Waterproofing, couplings and old heaters age. An annual walk-through of the plant spaces costs one evening and catches most of what is about to happen.

Buy or take as a service?

Leak detection can be bought as a one-off investment or taken as a service with no investment, with the same function either way. For many associations the service is simplest: a fixed monthly cost, and the damage prevention ends up in the same portal and with the same supplier as the metering and the energy, with one contact instead of several.