PAYING FOR AIR IN YOUR WATER

Pomodoro

f you haven’t noticed, the price of water is going up. Often overlooked in favor of its more costly cousin electricity, water usage in buildings is quickly becoming a major expense. With electricity conservation stealing the show and garnering most of the capital expenditure for building improvements, water systems investments have few options for quick savings. Soon, though, improving water conservation will be just as important as electricity.

Average water prices and sewer bills in 50 major American cities are rising. In 12 of the biggest U.S. cities, the price of water and sewage increased by an average of 80 percent between 2010 and 2018, according to an analysis by The Guardian. For now, the problem is relatively nascent. Water is still cheap, much cheaper than electricity, but regardless of how relatively expensive water is, it can still eat away at a building’s NOI, hurting valuations.

Water billing is volumetric but not everything in water isn’t actually water. There’s plenty of gases in water, like the oxygen fish use to breathe. In volumetric billing, you’re paying for all that gas in the water, not just the water itself, because the water meters read it all as additional volume. Once water is used, its pressure typically drops. Water is delivered at 65 psi, so opening a fixture in the building causes a drop in water pressure, expanding the air present and causing flow surges, both of which read as the increased volume at the meter. That means building owners pay for more water than they receive.

When installed on the downstream side of the water meter, the valve reduces pressure drop across the meter by creating a core of pressurized water keeping gas dissolved, thereby limiting its volume as the water passes through the meter with gases still compressed. The variable resistance of the valve acts as a shock absorber, maintaining even flow profiles despite usage by eliminating pressure drops and surges at the meter. In layman’s terms, the valve keeps bubbles out of the water so you’re not paying extra for them.

The device is based on Boyle’s Law, a scientific principle stating that a gas’s pressure and volume are inversely proportional. When you squeeze a balloon, the volume occupied by the air inside decreases, accompanied by an increase in pressure exerted by the air of the balloon. Boyle’s Law is why scuba divers must ascend slowly. If divers ascend too rapidly, the decreasing pressure can cause the air inside their bodies to expand too quickly resulting in decompression sickness, a life-threatening condition commonly referred to as the bends. Applied to water in pipes, when pressure decreases at the meter, the air inside the pipe expands, thereby raising water bills based on volumetric meters.

The variable spring-loaded plunger/flow management device (FMD) maintains a constant pressure on the incoming water supply directly adjacent to the meter, allowing the water to pass through in a compressed state, soon after returning to its original uncompressed state. The valve isn’t removing the air or compressing it, it’s simply preventing it from expanding. Water billing is dependent on many factors making generalizations difficult, but case studies verified by the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station have shown a 22 percent reduction in water and sewer expenses with FMD, saving roughly 10-20 percent on water bills with payback typically in 1 to 2 years depending on volume.

Nando Presciutti of WCC Water Management Services in Toronto says they have done over 600 installations of the FMD in apartment buildings and the results have bee fantastic.  In the GTA we are seeing payback periods as low as 6 months to as high as 3 years.  Not only that, the immediate impact on the Net Income of the building will increase its value.  WCC is a company in Toronto that focuses on water conservation and includes flood and leak monitoring and prevention technology to clients and water sub metering.