On 21st March 2020 large swathes of the UK economy were forcibly shut down in order to curb the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Public and private sector organisations including pubs, restaurants, gyms, cinemas, schools, community centres and swimming pools all shut their doors to customers and sent their staff home.

As these organisations close their buildings, it’s now more likely than ever that conditions which encourage bacterial growth such as Legionella will occur in a building’s water systems as water becomes stagnant in pipes. In addition, the temperature of water may be adversely affected by unusual patterns of building usage such as central heating systems being turned down or off entirely.

Once a water system has been overwhelmed with bacterial growth such as Legionella it is very challenging to deal with and in most cases requires the building to be shut down until the bacteria are eradicated which in extreme cases requires major structural work to cut out contaminated water system pipes. This serious and potentially avoidable situation can incur significant expense on the organisation and extend the shutdown of buildings which may have already been closed for several months.

The Neptune Water Monitoring system allows organisations to reduce the likelihood of these dangerous water system conditions occurring by identifying flow events and perpetually monitoring the temperature of both hot and cold-water feeds. In the case where water temperature is outside of predefined ranges the system detects this and notifies the relevant staff in order that action can be taken to resolve the issue.

Lockdown has really emphasised the value of Neptune, remotely monitoring all of our customers’ water systems without requiring on-site visits. In addition to the benefits described above, Neptune saves organisations money by dramatically reducing the miles travelled to site to take water measurements. This reduction in miles travelled translates to a positive impact on the environment in terms of reduced carbon emissions. The system’s compliancy benefits ensure that statutory obligations are met and water monitoring data is stored securely and indefinitely. Once the system has been installed across a customer’s estate it can monitor water system conditions without any human intervention.

Our world is becoming ever more distributed as its reliance on remote monitoring systems becomes more and more important. If it's possible to use sensors to monitor conditions in remote locations, then we should be. It just doesn't make sense that some businesses are still reliant on dispatching staff to locations to carry out manual measurements when there are systems available to do this remotely.