Preventing Water Damage and Preserving the Environment

“Last year, a water pump burst on the 20th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. The pump, located on the building’s main water line, failed and threatened to flood the floors below the leak, which would have caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage. The WINT system installed in the tower immediately detected the source of the leak and alerted the building’s management. The rapid response prevented enormous damage,” says Yaron Dycian, the company’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. “The WINT system installed in the Empire State Building reduced water use by 7.5 million gallons, saving $100,000 per year, and decreased carbon emissions by more than 300 tons, in addition to preventing the massive damage that the building would have incurred,” he continues.

Anyone who has been affected by water pipe damage knows that the repair costs are likely to be very high. Dycian relates that the owners of an office tower in Tel Aviv became WINT clients after a pipe burst on a high floor of the building three years ago. “The water leaked down to the basement levels. Entire floors were flooded. Computers and other electronic equipment were destroyed, as well as furniture,” he says. “Moreover, part of the employees had to be moved to other offices until the repairs were complete. In that office tower, the cost of the repair amounted to tens of millions of dollars.”

What does the system include?
“The WINT Water Intelligence system collects data from the system’s water meter every fraction of a second. Using proprietary artificial intelligence and algorithms, the system learns the normal water flow at that location and immediately detects any anomaly. It determines the source of the leak, alerts the building’s managers and, if necessary, automatically shuts off the water. Real-time smart monitoring detects the source of the leak, reduces water consumption and prevents damage. The system prevents leaks in buildings before they cause damage and harm the structure’s functioning; it monitors water use, analyzes usage patterns to enable savings, spots unusual usage, helps allocate water consumption to the right consumers, and reduces water bills by approximately 25%.”

WINT was founded by Moshe Ravid, a senior engineer in Israel’s defense industry whose house was seriously damaged due to a burst water pipe. Yaron Dycian and Alon Geva joined the company’s management in 2019, refined the technology and set WINT on an accelerated growth path. The company has been growing at a fast pace since then. Geva, who currently serves as CEO, was in an elite commando unit in the army and holds a B.Sc. in Engineering and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. Dycian received an MBA with high honors from Tel Aviv University, an M.Sc. with high honors in Engineering and a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics as part of the IDF’s prestigious Talpiot program.

A waste of an expensive resource

WINT developed an extremely effective solution for preventing water leaks and waste, says Dycian, calling them a “silent killer.” He explains that leaks are silent phenomena difficult to detect in time, especially in large buildings, whether the leak comes from faucets, toilets, irrigation systems, fountains or large air-conditioning systems.

Hundreds of clients, including large insurance companies in Europe, the U.S., Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, already use the company’s technology. Dycian explains that the problem is that people take water in buildings for granted. “Despite the awareness of the importance of water as a resource in Israel and around the world, water in buildings is an unmanaged resource. The result is invisible leaks from faucets, toilets, irrigation systems – all the building’s water systems in fact – continuously wasting water. Moreover, burst pipes aren’t detected in real-time and, as a result, considerable damage is incurred to the building. Worldwide water damage in buildings is estimated at tens of billions of shekels per year, according to insurance company reports.”

According to Dycian, the world is currently contending with two principal challenges in this context: wasted water, which is becoming a critical problem all over the world as a result of droughts and shortages caused by climate change, and carbon emissions caused by too much water consumption.

“In view of global warming, large parts of the world are drying up, including rivers and water reservoirs which served as water sources for cities and entire regions. Furthermore, supplying drinking water involves pumping and treating water, which requires chemicals and energy consumption. Water is transported to the consumer through a process that consumes energy and, after being used, is returned for treatment as wastewater – a process that utilizes energy and chemicals, and emits greenhouse gases such as methane. Desalinization, which is common in Israel and in many other places in the world, consumes a great deal of energy. Studies show that between 7 and 15 kgs. of carbon are emitted for every cubic meter of water that is used,” says Dycian.

In order to contribute to a cleaner environment, the multinational company PepsiCo signed an agreement with WINT to implement their unique systems in dozens of factories around the world. In 2021, PepsiCo announced a preliminary goal of reducing its water consumption by 15% by 2025, as part of an overall multi-year plan meant to conserve resources and reduce environmental damage caused by the company’s activities.

“People aren’t aware of the amount of water getting wasted in a building,” concludes Dycian. “Our experience with around 1,000 buildings around the world has shown that about one-quarter of the amount of water that enters a building goes to waste. The problem is exposed at a late stage, when a pipe bursts for instance. Our technology can detect the smallest leaks such as a leaking toilet on the 20th floor of a skyscraper.”

Partnered with WINT