Boutique Waterfront Hotel
125 rooms, newly constructed
Situation
Opening a new 125-room hotel along an attractive waterfront in upstate New York can be even more complex than expected. In speaking with the owner and general manager of this new hotel it was discovered that they were not familiar with their actual water and sewer use costs and were not aware if their water and sewer bills were comparable to other similar properties in the area.
They also did not know how the modern low-flow fixtures were installed and how to check to make sure they were working properly. FlowActive was offered to give them a picture of their water use, and they accepted.
Results
In the first 31 days, the property used 28,000 gallons of fresh water, and lost 1,700 gallons. It generated 33 alerts across 14 different rooms. This surprised the staff; they were losing over 6% of their water and had a problem in more than 10% of the rooms. Even with new facilities this is not uncommon. Continuous monitoring in hotels and multiple-unit buildings illuminates developing situations before they become problems.
Because everything was fairly new, the leaks did not significantly affect the bottom line and the environment as much as they would have in a four or five-year old property. The most surprising room was Room 209. It had multiple alerts, sometimes using over 500 gallons of water per day.
Our analytics looked at several hotels with similar fixtures shows the loss rates, and thus costs, increase predictably over time as a property ages in a seven-to-ten-year renovation cycle. It makes sense: The older the fixtures, the more frequent the leaks and the higher the loss.
Maintaining the benefits of renovation without having to continually replace fixtures is as easy as installing FlowActive. In the instance of new construction installation, the customer creates a baseline for performance and identifies installation issues right away. The FirstDrops® monitoring system watches what the staff cannot, and it will continue checking and reporting on water use deviations every day. Our analytics showed the losses were not dramatic today but will escalate in about 30% of the rooms already alerting.
Instant Savings
The GM recognized that while his property was outperforming competitor properties that were three to five-years-old, the property profitability and environmental performance were headed down unless he proactively managed the property. The forecasted savings as the property aged was enough to warrant the investment in FlowActive.
Summary
The losses on a new property were shocking to the engineer and his staff. They had purchased and installed the latest, high-efficiency toilets. They believed, like all of us, that “we paid good money for these and they should work perfectly.” However, this is not always the case in the real world. As the management at another hotel shared with us: It’s nice to have new fixtures after a renovation, but we are always conscious of the fact that sometimes they are installed as fast as possible and without proper testing when complete.
About FlowAcitve
FlowActive™ is revolutionizing property water intelligence with the power of AI. Designed and developed by building owners who know the importance of protecting real estate assets. FlowActive predictive analytics help owners and operators prevent loss, streamline maintenance, manage costs, and deliver real-time insights into water, energy, and GHG usage and savings.
Visit www.flowactive.com or call (518) 992-5408 for more information.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1831244. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
