TYPES OF BUILDINGS: Multifamily Residential
RESULTS: Leak rate reduced from 29% to 8%
SERVICES: Water Monkey Smart WaterMonitoring
NOI ENHANCEMENT: Estimated $105,035 per year
When a multi-residential property in Scarborough, Ontario began seeing water bills that didn’t reflect expected consumption, management did exactly what they were supposed to do. They raised the issue with every responsible party.
First, they contacted the city. The city checked the meter. No issues found. Then they went to their submetering company. The submetering company reviewed their data. No issues there either. Every service provider confirmed their piece of the puzzle was working correctly. Yet the bills kept telling a different story.
Without real-time visibility into how water was actually moving through the building, no one could explain where it was going. The waste continued. The costs kept climbing. And the property team was left with a problem nobody would own.
Connected Sensors deployed a Water Monkey device directly on the building’s city water meter. The install was non-intrusive and battery-operated, requiring no disruption to the building or its residents.
Within the first billing period, the Water Monkey delivered minute-by-minute consumption data that made the problem impossible to ignore. The building’s overnight minimum flow rates, daily usage patterns, and continuous baseline leak were all visible in real time.
Over the January to March 2026 baseline period, the Water Monkey data revealed that the building was consuming an average of 152.4 m³ of water per day — with 44.9 m³ of that going nowhere. Not being used by residents. Not lost to seasonal variation. Leaking continuously, every day, at a cost of over $269,000 a year.
Armed with this data, the property management team had a clear, defensible case for immediate remediation. Action was taken quickly.
Following the Water Monkey findings, the property conducted a toilet tune-up program across the building. Faulty flappers and running toilets were identified and repaired.
The impact was immediate and measurable. The Water Monkey paid for itself before the first invoice arrived. From install to identified savings, the entire detection window was a matter of weeks, against a cost problem that had been compounding undetected for months.
For a 196-unit building, $105,035 in annual savings represents a permanent reduction in one of the few operating expense lines that scales with inefficiency rather than occupancy. Fix the leak, and the savings don’t depreciate.
| Metric | Before (Jan-Mar 2026) | After (Apr 26) |
|---|---|---|
| Avg Daily Consumption | 152.4 m³/day | 93.4 m³/day |
| Avg Daily Leak Loss | 44.9 m³/day | 7.6 m³/day |
| Leak Rate | 29% | 8% |
| Annualized Water Spend | $269,851 | $164,816 |
| Annual Savings | $105,035 |
For ownership, it’s something larger. Every dollar of NOI improvement capitalizes into asset value and at prevailing MURB cap rates in the GTA, this single intervention translates to an estimated $2.1M to $2.6M uplift in enterprise value. That’s not a projection. It’s arithmetic on a measured result.
| Capital Markets Impact | Estimated Value |
|---|---|
| Direct annual NOI lift | $105,035 |
| Asset value uplift @ 4.0% cap rate | $2,625,881 |
| Asset value uplift @ 4.5% cap rate | $2,334,117 |
| Asset value uplift @ 5.0% cap rate | $2,100,705 |
| Water removed from operating expense (annual) | 21,657 m³ / 21.7 ML |
The result at this property is not an outlier. It is the financial signature of a property that was paying for water it never used. That signature shows up across the multi-residential category.
Applied across a 10-property portfolio of comparable scale, the same intervention pattern would represent over $1M in recurring NOI uplift and $20M+ in capitalized asset value, before factoring in reduced insurance exposure, deferred capital on plumbing infrastructure, and improved sustainability reporting metrics.
These savings were not assumed, they were measured. That is the standard the executive team should expect from every operating expense line on every asset in the portfolio.
The toilet tune-up program delivered a meaningful result. But multi-residential buildings are high-wear environments. Fixtures degrade. Flappers fail. Toilets develop phantom flushes. What resolves a leak today does not prevent the next one from developing.
Our experience has been that problems and resolutions like these will continue to occur regularly without the proper technology in place. A one-time fix addresses the current leak. Ongoing monitoring prevents the next one.
A future opportunity for this property would be to implement the Water Warden program alongside a retained plumber for rapid fixture response. Together, continuous monitoring and a responsive maintenance protocol protect the savings over the long term.
