WATERFIX STRATA PROVIDES SAVINGS FOR CUSTOMERS IN HI-RISE TOWERS Andre Boerema Sydney Water, Sydney, NSW, Australia KEYWORDS Water Efficiency, leak repairs, cost savings, hi-rise, performance contracting, Waterfix INTRODUCTION YEAR CASE STUDY WAS IMPLEMENTED 2016 to 2018 CASE STUDY SUMMARY Waterfix Strata is a unique adaptation to Sydney Water s long running water efficiency / plumbing tune-up service, Waterfix. We reinvented our approach to delivering Waterfix to fully meet the needs of customers living in residential hi-rise buildings, who are also suffering from the costs of excessive water use. We have successfully overcome all the structural barriers that tend to prevent individual unit owners from taking advantage of some of the most cost-effective sustainability upgrades. This has been achieved by developing water use benchmarks along with tailored appointment scheduling, quotation and communications processes as well as an innovative approach to financing. We are now reaching the end of a pilot phase of this new service. After completing 5 hi-rise buildings totalling almost 1,000 units, we have achieved average water savings of 30%, payback periods of under 4 years, customer satisfaction scores of 9.3/10 and average net promotor scores of 74%. This new offering is proving itself to be a unique, financially viable service with significant benefits flowing to all parties; customers, contractors, local governments and Sydney Water. CASE STUDY DETAIL Residential hi-rise buildings approved for construction in Sydney before September 2014 are almost entirely served by a single water meter. Residents of these buildings receive no regular feedback relating to the water they use, rather it is billed to the Owners Corporation and the whole community pays their share of its cost in proportion to their unit entitlement. Research conducted by Sydney Water in 2011 studied 22 residential hi-rise towers in Sydney. The findings of this research included a result whereby approximately 85% of total building water use across the study group was consumed within apartments (Figure 1, below), as opposed to irrigated areas, pools, commercial units, common areas, etc. The research also enabled us to develop our residential hi-rise water use benchmarks. So, we are now able to compare different buildings on similar, easily obtainable terms so their relative water use efficiency can be objectively observed.
Figure 1: Water use breakdown for residential hi-rise buildings, ~85% is in-apartment use This research underpins our confidence in targeting domestic water use savings through taps, toilets, showers and leak repairs after we identify a building is high on benchmark water use and/or has an increasing water use trend. Analysis conducted by the Reserve Bank using 2015 data suggests approximately 67% of occupants in residential apartments in Sydney are tenants who therefore don t receive regular strata corporation bills that may vary with utility costs and other variable charges. Since the 2006 Census there has been a 33.6% increase in hi-rise apartments in Sydney. This compares with just a 1.6% increase between 2001 and 2006. The 2006 Census shows 12% of Sydney s population live in residential hi-rise buildings, the highest proportion in Australia, where Melbourne and Brisbane had 5% and 4% of their populations living in hi-rise developments respectively. There has been considerable growth in the market since and the latest Census results will be worth noting when they are finally released. Hi-rise living in older buildings comes with additional maintenance and upkeep of any older building. However, it can be very difficult to identify or understand whether there is a need for plumbing maintenance in your unit. Particularly if the issue is leakage and it happens to be a little used toilet, tap, you travel extensively or you have tenants in your unit. This is largely because there is no direct price signal relating to your consumption of water and there are often disincentives for tenants reporting minor (or even major) repairs in a city with ever increasing rental costs and frequent shortages of affordable housing. In cases where a hi-rise building has just one water meter, water bills are split so that the fixed charges are issued to individual owners while the water use charges can only be associated with a single meter and are therefore issued to the owner s corporation. This means owners are paying for water consumption indirectly through their levies, based on unit entitlement. If you are a tenant you won t see any water bills, but your rent will surely reflect their costs. With no direct price signal, even owners who have found leaks can find it hard to justify the expense of organising and completing plumbing maintenance when they are unlikely to receive any cost relief in terms of reduced water expenses. Even some of the energy costs associated with excessive water use in hi-rise buildings are incurred by the Owners Corporation via pumping costs. Water heating costs are often billable by individual unit owners via an individual hot water meter. Previously Sydney Water marketed Waterfix directly to property owners and while we regularly found individuals who were concerned about their building s water use, we were only rarely successful in engaging every owner of a building to pay for our subsidised services. We also relied on the building occupants to identify
1/02/2010 1/06/2010 1/10/2010 1/02/2011 1/06/2011 1/10/2011 1/02/2012 1/06/2012 1/10/2012 1/02/2013 1/06/2013 1/10/2013 1/02/2014 1/06/2014 1/10/2014 1/02/2015 1/06/2015 1/10/2015 1/02/2016 1/06/2016 1/10/2016 1/02/2017 1/06/2017 1/10/2017 themselves as living in a building with excessive water use. Our early results showed great potential for our plumbing service, even if our targeting and positioning were, at the time imperfect. A small 9-unit brick walk-up unit block is our best and earliest example. A single environmental champion/ resident managed to convince her strata committee to engage Sydney Water to deliver Waterfix in bulk to all the owners on a single booking. They explained they had old, single flush toilets they wanted replacing. By confirming consecutive appointments for all nine units we set about fixing leaks, replacing toilets and fitting 3 and 4-star rated flow regulators on the kitchen, bathroom and laundry taps. Figure 2, below shows the success of our service in terms of both immediate reductions in water use, but also the longevity of those savings. The chart also demonstrates that even after achieving these benefits, there remain structural barriers for owners and occupants to commit to ongoing plumbing maintenance. In early 2017 after five and half years of low, stable use, the building s water consumption began its upwards trend. This trend is almost certainly going to be a return of unchecked tap and possibly toilet leaks within individual units. 600 Lyons Rd Strathfield Benchmark Water Use 500 400 300 5.5 years of savings! = $17,200 200 100 0 That s $1,900 / unit in savings for less than $400 in costs! Figure 2, An early example of the impact of a whole-building plumbing tune-up Today, Waterfix Strata overcomes the individual-problem-but-shared-impact issues identified above by using benchmark water use to help identify which buildings are most likely to benefit and then offering them a whole building plumbing tune-up. We then offer to defer all our costs and provide a repayment plan that matches the rate of savings obtained by the building because of our services. This combination of a one-off, turn-key service, no upfront costs and the assurance of an experienced team with proven results has been a game changer for us. The service delivery itself has also been reorganised to minimise the disruption and the time taken to complete our work. We make every effort to engage residents, offering them an appointment time while ensuring language, social and other barriers of communication are dealt with tactfully and effectively. We then focus on logistics with our plumbers to help them deliver a maximum number of appointments each day. All these carefully developed elements ensure our service is efficiently delivered and we can pass our cost savings onto our customers. We work closely with Stata Managers, Owners Committee members and Building Managers ensuring all new information we obtain is shared and recorded carefully for the future benefit of the building. After all, it is the future water efficiency of the building we are relying on to receive full financial compensation for our efforts.
Pilot Program Results Between mid-june and mid December 2017, we serviced 5 buildings, with an average size of 187 units which ranged in size between 87 and 387 units. All the buildings were located within the City of Sydney, most had large indoor pools, gyms and at least some irrigated common area gardens. It is typical for buildings of this size to have common, gas heated hot water supplies and only common areas are centrally cooled via roofmounted cooling towers. Most buildings also had several commercial shops and offices on the lower levels. Average water and cost savings across all 5 buildings is 30% totalling over $112,000 / year in water costs only. Early estimates indicate that approximately 10-15% additional savings are being obtained through related energy savings from reduced water pumping and heating. A typical example in the mid-range of our completed buildings to date is in the Sydney CBD, an older 154-unit tower with ground floor commercial tenants including a café, hair dresser, retail shops an outdoor swimming pool on the lower levels and central gas water heating for all units. The building has significant over tenanting challenges and is in an area of the city that is popular for students seeking cheap accommodation. The building was originally fitted with single flush toilets and we were commissioned to replace 63 which were yet to be replaced. Nearly all of these were leaking extensively while many taps and showers were also beyond repair and had to be replaced. These factors all combined to increase the cost / KL saved beyond what has become typical for subsequent buildings. Average daily water use at the building prior to the Waterfix service being delivered was over 174,000 Kl / day and this dropped to 113.6Kl / day after Waterfix work was completed (Figure 3, below). The service was delivered in June 2017 and value of savings has stabilised at $44,900 / year. We are expecting the full cost of work, including financing costs and overheads to be repaid within 4 years. DAILY WATER USE (KL) 250,000 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 - Figure 3, typical results of Waterfix at a residential hi-rise tower The Body Corporate was not billed for any Waterfix costs until the first bill demonstrated the value of their savings. A further insight to the impact Waterfix has made to the level of leakage was obtained by analysing the average minimum flow through the meter over a short period for each 24-hour period. In this case we found the minimum flow to typically occur between 2:00 and 4:00 AM each day. Figure 4, below shows minimum night flows for the same building before and in the weeks following Waterfix services being completed.
Min flow (L) / day 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000-1/02/2017 1/03/2017 1/04/2017 1/05/2017 1/06/2017 1/07/2017 Figure 4, The reduction in minimum night flows, a proxy for leakage after Waterfix Minimum night flows provide a reasonable estimate of leakage within a hi-rise building but given the nature of the resident population and the likely incidence of shift workers and those with legitimate water use between 2:00 and 4:00 AM it is reasonable to expect higher than typical minimum flows at this particular building. Despite this, Waterfix has resulted in a 73% reduction in minimum flows from over 53,375 Litres / day to under 14,400 litres / day, contributing over $29,000 in savings. This means leak repairs represent approximately 65% of the total savings obtained by Waterfix while approximately 35% of the savings are the result of more efficient tap, toilet and shower fittings. Many inefficient top-loading washing machines were observed in the building and these represent further significant savings the building can potentially obtain in the future. Meanwhile, we continue to deliver Waterfix Strata with assistance from the City of Sydney and other councils who are pursuing long-term sustainability goals. With over 35,000 strata buildings in the City of Sydney alone we expect to build on the early successes we ve achieved to date.