This water meter can shut off leaks before they cause damage |

The huge cost of water damage

According to the Association of British Insurers, water damage is one of the most common household property claims in the United Kingdom. On average, a burst pipe claim can cost nearly £9,000 ($13,000).

Other water-saving tech on the market include home monitors Flo by Moen and Belkin’s Phyn Plus system. But Dycian says what makes WINT stand out is its ability to deal with large-scale office buildings, factories and construction sites.

The damage caused by burst water pipes can cost businesses millions of dollars.

“It’s quite amazing the amount of damage that water can cause in a building,” he tells CNN Business. “A pipe breaks on the 20th floor, water trickles down and anything in its wake is really destroyed. We have customers who have lost tens of millions of dollars in a single event like this.”

This problem was all too familiar for UK-based construction company Mace, which built London icons like The Shard and the London Eye.

“We’ve had a number of issues around leaking pipes in the final throes of construction that caused millions of pounds’ worth of damage,” says Paul Connolly, technical director for Mace.

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Beyond the financial cost, Connolly says damage to reputation and rising insurance premiums forced the company to look for solutions. Today, WINT is incorporated into each new Mace construction site, which Connolly says has helped their bottom line and their sustainability goals.

WINT typically saves users 20 to 25% in water consumption, according to Dycian.

Saving water

With water supplies under pressure globally, it’s more important than ever to cut down on consumption and wastage. Even a small or slow leak can waste a lot of water; a 3-millimeter crack in a pipe can waste about 946 liters (250 gallons) of water per day, according to American Water Resources.

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Dycian says 25% of water that enters any building is wasted through small things like a running toilet or a dripping faucet. In US households alone, those average leaks account for nearly 1 trillion gallons wasted each year.

“Here’s water scarcity (and) here’s a huge business problem that’s causing massive damages — and a solution that manages to solve both,” he says. “That’s exciting to me.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the founder of WINT.

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