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.
![](https://www.sums.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TAFE-NSW-Great-Lakes-Campus-1024x458.jpg)
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![](https://www.sums.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/none-png.png)