Six sectors where a leak costs more than the water

A leak is rarely expensive because of what it wastes. It is expensive because of what it damages, what it interrupts, and how long it runs before anyone notices. Here is what early detection changes, sector by sector.

Insurers

In France, insurance companies handle more than 4,000 water damage claims every day, at an average cost of €4,000 per incident. Around 60% are caused by leaks that were not detected in time — which means the majority of the bill is not the accident itself, but the delay.

AquaSmart solutions, capable of detecting 95% or more of leaks, cut that delay to minutes. For an insurer, the effect compounds: fewer major claims, smaller claims when they do happen, and a portfolio that can be monitored rather than merely indemnified.

A lever to improve ESG scores. AquaSmart contributes to improving ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) performance for businesses:

  1. Environmental: Reducing water waste through proactive leak management.
  2. Social: Educating customers on responsible consumption and enhancing brand reputation.
  3. Governance: Complying with environmental regulations and reinforcing credibility with investors.

Homeowners

A homeowner came to us with water bills that made no sense. Nothing was visibly wrong — no damp patch, no dripping tap, nothing to show a plumber. After installing the Clip-On, the answer appeared within days: a faulty automatic sprinkler valve was failing to close, wasting hundreds of litres every night while the household slept.

The repair took an afternoon. The point is that without continuous measurement, that leak would have run for another year, and the only evidence would have been the bill.

Landlords and property managers

Managing a large residential portfolio means paying for water damage twice: once for the repair, and once for the disruption to residents. The damage that ends up costing the most usually starts in the places nobody visits — a riser, a basement, an empty flat between two tenancies.

  • Preventive maintenance. Early detection in communal and private areas, before a ceiling gives way.
  • Lower maintenance costs. Fewer emergency call-outs, and repairs that are targeted instead of exploratory.
  • Higher resident satisfaction. Faster responses, and a building that feels looked after.

One property manager overseeing more than 200 apartments reduced annual expenses by 20% by identifying water losses within hours rather than months.

Hotels and hospitality

A hotel loses far more to a leak than the cost of the water. A flooded room is a room that cannot be sold, on the floor above a restaurant that may have to close. And because consumption is high and irregular by nature, a continuous loss hides easily inside a normal-looking bill.

AquaSmart is deployed in stages: the main inlet first, for an immediate view of the whole site, then the circuits that carry the real risk — laundry, kitchens, cooling towers, risers and irrigation. Each addition sharpens the picture, and group operators can compare properties on the same dashboard: which sites consume more than they should, and which ones are quietly leaking.

Pools and spas

A pool that loses a few centimetres a week is not obviously broken. It is topped up automatically, the loss is absorbed into normal consumption, and the problem only becomes visible when the surrounding structure starts to suffer. Continuous flow measurement makes the difference between evaporation and a genuine loss visible early — which matters for a pool professional maintaining dozens of installations, and for the owner paying to heat water that is running into the ground.

Healthcare and critical facilities

Some water systems cannot be allowed to fail. Dialysis units, laboratories and treatment rooms depend on a continuous, controlled supply, and their technical rooms are often the least visited spaces in the building. AquaSmart monitors those points continuously, establishes what a normal day looks like — including the drop at weekends — and flags the deviation on the day it appears rather than at the next inspection.

The sensor clips onto the existing pipework, so putting a critical circuit under continuous watch never means interrupting it.

Tell us about your buildings and we will tell you what a deployment looks like.