Early intervention helps recreation ground save 1,100 litres of water a day

When London Borough of Merton Council switched to Wave in 2019, its Energy and Sustainability Manager, Richard Neal, met with one of our dedicated account managers. At that introductory meeting, Richard was given a free high consumption report and his account manager discussed concerns about particularly high consumption at one of the council’s sites, John Innes Public Park.

The recreation ground is a community asset featuring gardens, tennis courts, a bowling green and toilets. Normal water use was around 750 litres a day.

As most of the council’s sites have private Automatic Meter Reads (AMR) for monitoring water use, Richard was able to check the data and confirm there was unusually high consumption at the park.

AMR helps organisations understand how water is being used, avoid waste and helps keep bills more accurate by providing customers and retailers with real-time data.

Solving the problem

Working together, our account manager and Richard identified that the best option to fix the issue was to use our Leakage Find and Fix service.

The first step was to complete a leak and flow test to locate the leak. However, when attending John Innes Park, the stop tap couldn’t be found. The pipe was clamped, and results showed that the water meter was still running at a rate of two litres of water per minute.

Further investigation found another pipe with no handle, which was continuously running. Once this was stopped, the meter came to a standstill, which confirmed that there were no underground leaks.

Savings

The leak was wasting over 1,100 litres of water every day and costing the council £82 a month. Following the one-day site visit, water use returned to normal.

Our account manager, Paul Vincent said: “The leak was initially identified through our initial consumption review, then confirmed by Richard and the council’s AMR data. We were able to quickly locate and repair the leak, saving the council the cost of unnecessary usage, achieved by working closely with our customer.”

Richard Neal, Energy and Sustainability Manager at the council said: “Using the Find & Fix service from Wave was a really straightforward way to resolve the leakage issue, and payback on the work was around one year. The whole process of booking in an appointment is really easy and the reports we received were clear and concise.”

We work with many large public sector organisations that benefit from our Key Account Management service. As part of this service, our experienced account managers work closely to help our customers look after diverse site portfolios. We support individual premises to reduce water consumption, cut waste and drive down costs, as well as communicate with wholesalers on behalf of customers to get the best outcomes.

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