Luxury Multifamily Residential Case Study

Heritage brand with global property interests protects premium tenant experience in luxury apartment building

About the Company

The Company has a generations-long legacy of global property development and management interests. With a focus on enhancing dynamic, diverse, and well-connected urban areas, it aims to create resilient, future-ready places where communities, businesses, and nature can thrive.

THE CHALLENGE

Preserving a premium tenant experience & guarding against water leaks

The Company was seeking new technologies that would help them to proactively manage the risk of water leaks across their portfolio, while also preserving the premium tenant experience they are known for.

To pilot the technology, they selected an ultra-premium multifamily residential property that had been experiencing periodic water leaks. The multistory building offers its tenants a luxe lifestyle in the heart of a popular global city, with an experience that is emblematic of the brand’s quality.

To protect the premium tenant experience, water leaks needed to be detected in the early stages. But by the same token, tenant disruption had to be minimized, meaning access to the apartments was severely limited. Previous solutions had generated high levels of false positives, creating tenant disruption, and inefficiency and distrust amongst the facilities teams.

THE SOLUTION

Water leak detection that accurately detects leaks in the early stages

The Company installed LAIIER’s Severn WLD™ sensors as their water leak detection solution. The multi-floor deployment provided detection across a number of use cases, including HVAC, pumps, kitchen appliances, and bathrooms.

The devices were efficiently retrofitted into the existing building infrastructure in under a day. Without requiring specialist tools or invasive mounting, the devices fit easily behind existing kickboards and access panels, and in service cupboards.

The fleet of Severn WLD sensors immediately began monitoring for water once installed, sending regular data and updates to LAIIER’s cloud dashboard.

Contemporary luxe living area
THE RESULT

Leaks are detected early, and tenant disruption is minimized

A water leak under a bathtub was detected within 2 weeks. It was detected early enough that water had not yet travelled to lower floors, meaning damage was minimal. The position of the sensor pointed to perished bath sealant, and repairs were swiftly made.

The Company did have flow meters installed. However, because the leak occurred after water had left the supply lines and once it entered the shower valve, the flow meters were unable to detect the leak.

Further leaks were subsequently detected by the Severn WLD sensors in other areas. In each instance, repairs were able to be made swiftly, often without inconveniencing tenants.

Only sending alerts for genuine water leaks - or avoiding “false positives” - impressed the built Company’s facilities team. Instead of unnecessarily disrupting tenants by investigating false positives, the Company’s facilities team limited investigations to genuine leaks, notified by alerts they trusted.

The Company installed further Severn WLD devices in a further building within 2 months, and is now planning expansion for key locations in its portfolio.

 

First leak detected within 2 weeks

  • Detected early enough to avoid multi-floor damage, repairs, and multi-unit tenant disruption.

  • Undetectable by flow meters due to location beyond water supply lines.