Monitoring helps maintain social distancing during COVID 19

The COVID 19 pandemic has really brought the important role of water monitoring to the fore. Remote 24/7 solutions such as Hevasure allow locked down buildings to be safety checked continuously. This reduces the need to send people on site, thus assisting with social distancing.

At the latest iconic skyscraper building in London, Hevasure’s remote monitoring solution has been sending data about water system condition every five minutes throughout lockdown, ensuring changes in parameters which could lead to corrosion – such as dissolved oxygen (DO) levels, pressure and corrosion rates – are quickly identified and acted upon.

All Hevasure data is collated and reported alongside BMS operation data to the CBRE site team. This  shows fulfilment of maintenance responsibilities and system integrity, with no need for anyone to be there in person.

And, compared with sampling, remote water system monitoring in this way is imminently more accurate and instantaneous. A sample requires human involvement at every step of the way and can take days if not weeks to return. Crucially, it does not detect the precursor to all corrosion issues – DO.

When this building is brought back into operation, FMs, building owners and occupants can return confident in the knowledge that there are no nasty secrets likely to cause expensive repairs or breakdown in the closed circuit water systems.

So what’s been going on at this building during the COVID 19 lock down? The following graphs have been created by Hevasure during March 2020, monitoring the building’s LTHW system:

Dissolved oxygen

Low levels overall, apart from a spike on the 14^th This returned to normal quickly giving no cause for concern. The DO level fluctuation was within satisfactory range (<0.2ppm), a critical parameter to control and prevent system damage from gross aeration.

Pressure: Steady throughout

Temperature: Steady throughout

Conductivity: A spike in conductivity was reported on the 14^th March following the addition of corrosion inhibitor by Guardian.

Galvanic current: No galvanic current which indicates no corrosion.

Other observations

Even though corrosion inhibitor levels were slightly low throughout the period, no active corrosion was occurring (this is indicated by low galvanic current & crevice corrosion numbers.)

We can demonstrate that system pipework and components i.e. chillers and boilers were not exposed to corrosion and no metal loss from the surface of pipework occurred. Hevasure measures metal loss in mmpy (millimetres per year).

For more information about how Guardian can help monitor closed circuit water systems in your building, contact us.