This startup looks to cut water wastage and bills, one house at a time

#News(Startup) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

The World Health Organization (WHO) prescribed water consumption is 150
litres per person per day, which translates to 600 litres per day for a family of
four. An average Indian family of four, living in an apartment, consumes
about 1,000 litres of water everyday.

Without a metering system in place, the bill of Shukla’s apartment complex
would be a common flat rate for all residents despite the varying amounts of
water consumed by each household. People were pointing fingers at each
other for keeping a dog or having their in-laws as additional residents for
their bloated water bills. Another problem faced by the high-rise apartments was to find out where to install the meter as they had multiple supply lines.

“From January 2013 to mid-2013, we worked on the prototype, tested it out on our own apartment, which
translated to phenomenal savings,” he said. From a bill that used to factor in the range of Rs 2000, the two
ended up paying only the bare maintenance fee of Rs 100 to Rs 150.

This was the birth of WaterOn, which would go on to be the flagship product of SmarterHomes.
Emboldened by their success, Shukla and Rangan approached the rest of their society members to test their
meters. He said that by next month, “The average bill settled at Rs 1,420 for these 65 houses. Where the
society brought in an average of 200 tankers per month, it then reduced to 117 tankers per month. This was
a drop of 40 percent, which sustained itself month after month,” he said.

Metering tends to bring down consumption down by 35 percent and this is a well-researched fact, he said.

When Shukla started speaking to potential customers in their vicinity, a few of them asked if there was a
way to remotely switch off the water supply. “The reason being that there are people who do not pay the maintenance charges. While the electricity supply was not under their control, the water supply was, and if somebody is not paying the maintenance bill, then they can switch off their water supply,” said Shukla
This led to the development of a remote operable valve in WaterOn, now part of SmarterHomes’ standard
products.

Read More..