In Mid-November, the portal SUMS alerted Campus Infrastructure Officers of high water usage onsite. Water was flowing at 68 litres per hour overnight, showing significant out-of-hours consumption. The high overnight flow was investigated over the coming days and cleaners discovered a faulty tap leaking continuously. The tap was replaced resulting in a slight drop in usage figures – to 40 litres per hour overnight.
The investigation continued and revealed a much larger issue. A lawn mowing contractor found a very lush and wet patch of grass in a remote part of the Campus grounds and a plumber was called in to investigate. Four feet underground, in sandy soil, a PVC pipe junction was revealed with a crack in one of the pipes. The pipe had burst due to high pressure where four pipes came into one.
SUMS Graph showing water usage before and after rectification of the leaks.
The leak was repaired immediately and overnight water usage dropped to just 4 litres per hour overnight.
If this leak had remained undetected over the 6 week summer break, at 68 litres per hour, excess water usage would have amounted to 68,544 litres.
This is a great example of TAFE Infrastructure Officers using SUMS to identify high water usage and working closely with cleaning staff and external contractors to save valuable resources.
Margrethe Ingemann