Founder's Story

WaterSignal grew out of John Lie-Nielsen's involvement with architecture and engineering students at Georgia Institute of Technology during a special project developing the Solar Decathlon House, a sustainable house that presently resides at Tellus Museum in Cartersville, GA.

As founder of Green Habitats, an organization that promotes sustainable building, energy and water conservation, Lie-Nielsen explains, "there was such an interest in conservation among these young people and our research led us to discover the extraordinary amount of water waste that goes on in multifamily housing properties."

As a former property manager with over 180,000 apartment units under his company, Johnstown American, Lie-Nielsen understands first-hand how important conserving water is to a property owner.

John Lie-Nielsen is also a property owner concerned about water usage and cost. Areas of drought, escalating water/sewer costs, plus water restrictions inspired him to start discovering better ways to measure and manage our most precious resource: WATER.

After discovering that no immediate response water monitoring service (or real-time water alert system) existed, his team went to work researching, developing and perfecting the device which launched the revolutionary technology of WaterSignal into existence.

Leak Detection

For years, building and property managers have routinely checked electricity meters for excessive usage. But the other natural resource – water – is typically only checked when the bill comes 30 to 60 days after the last read. During that time, an unseen underground leak or one at a cooling tower could have seen thousands of gallons – and dollars – lost.

And for those who do check the water meter daily, if a catastrophic leak were to occur after hours or over a weekend, no one would know until the next day or even days depending on the location of the leak.

WaterSignal’s breakthrough technology features a self-contained, non-intrusive device that listens to the pulse of a water meter and sends data in real time to property managers and owners wherever they are.

Much like an energy surge that pops a circuit breaker, when water spikes above the preset hourly or daily limit, the device detects the problem and immediately alerts property staff via SMS text and/or email.

Also, if a building has more than one meter being monitored, such as one for the cooling tower and another for irrigation, the manager can quickly determine which meter spiked in order to isolate the problem area faster for repair.

Instant alerts of excessive water usage and major leaks translates into thousands of dollars saved.

Real Time Analysis

“How can you manage what you don’t measure?”

Through WaterSignal’s breakthrough technology of collecting water usage data, you can make changes that can save, on average, 14 percent per month on water. That increases your NOI and puts money back into your budget.

WaterSignal’s unique system features a self-contained, non-intrusive device that listens to the pulse of a water meter. Through the process, data is collected in real time and sent wirelessly to a secure website portal where managers and owners can view a property’s water consumption for the entire month, day, or even down to the hour.

With the data the system collects, it can pinpoint if irrigation system usage is excessive, if it runs during a rain storm because of faulty rain sensors, or if buildings are using water on days no one is there. Charts provide a quick comparative view of gallons used, if any day or hour had excessive usage and if non-occupied days (weekends/holidays) recorded higher than normal use.

Additionally, WaterSignal will help save you money on your water bill by:

Providing you the opportunity to analyze your portfolio to determine problem properties while looking at costs based on a percentage of revenue or costs per square foot or per unit per year.
Advising you when water use may trigger higher tier pricing.
Tour your building and provide recommendations about water use, proposed repairs, upgrades and new products that can save you money.