Next Generation Abnormal Water Usage

What does this mean?

Alert Labs learns usage patterns of a property over time and is able to identify abnormally high usage based on the hour of the day and peak daily usage. The purpose is to identify sudden spikes in usage that indicate a likely problem and alert you quickly so that you can investigate.

Why it's important

Next Gen Abnormal Water Usage is different than Advanced Leak Detection. Abnormal Water Use is designed to quickly alert you to sudden spikes in water usage. Advanced Leak Detection evaluates leaks over a longer period of time as the system gains confidence that an ongoing leak exists. Both systems work together to monitor your properties and alert you about different types of water problems.

NEW - Expected High Trend

You may have noticed the water timeline now displaying the expected high trend. This is one part of the Next Gen Abnormal Water Usage. The trend will display the expected high for each hour based on the previous 2 weeks of usage data.

NEW - "High Use"

1. The Alert Labs Platform has a new event that will be displayed as "High Use". It will send alerts in the same way via SMS and email.
2. The total volume of water deemed to be abnormal is now displayed below the Water Usage timeline in yellow.

What you should know

Here are some important points about how Next Gen Abnormal Water Usage works:

1. Expected high usage trends are based on a rolling window of the previous 2 weeks.
2. The Alert Labs Platform adds a buffer to expected hourly highs to allow for normal fluctuations within any given hour or day.
3. You will receive a "High Water Use" alert within 1-2 hours after the start of the abnormal usage. The previous 60 minutes of data is evaluated every time data is pushed to the Alert Labs platform.
4. Abnormal usage is not simply any usage above the expected high. Alert Labs considers multiple factors including peak hourly usage in a day, number of minutes above the expected high for a given hour, and the hour of the day.

Common causes of abnormal water spikes

1. Burst pipe (could be as a result of freezing, broken irrigation system, etc)
2. Failure in water heaters or boilers spilling water on the floor
3. Broken machinery consuming excessive water
4. Janitorial staff leaving water running overnight
5. Water left on following lead flushing