Water Usage Audits: Using an Outside Firm (Part 1)

CHICAGO — Most industrial and institutional laundries keep a close eye on their water usage.

Leaks and inefficient equipment utilization can increase water bills and other energy costs. Not to mention the environmental impact of wasting a precious resource.

But sometimes it can be difficult to see where the problem areas are in a laundry that staff have walked through and seen day after day, maybe year after year.

That’s when hiring an outside firm — with experience, expertise and fresh eyes — to conduct a water usage audit, also known as a water efficiency study, could be of value.

BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES

Kirk Stinchcombe is founder and managing director of Econics, a water sustainability specialist located in Victoria, British Columbia. He says using outside firms to conduct water usage audits offers benefits such as reviewing meter data, which allows them to track changes in water use over time and correlate them with production changes.

“They can also install submeters, which use new technology to provide real-time data and monitor specific areas or equipment within the facility, going beyond the general consumption tracked by the main water meter,” he adds.

Stinchcombe goes on to say that a key focus for outside firms is identifying and repairing leakage that provides no benefit and can go unnoticed for years, especially in facilities using large volumes of water.

Michael Laurie, who owns Watershed LLC, a sustainability consultancy in Vashon, Washington, adds that benefits can “include getting another set of ideas on the subject. Often, consultants who have worked on laundry projects will be up to date on the latest technologies and ways to save. With outside consultants, you can avoid in-house staff not wanting to look at new ideas because they may be incorrectly convinced that they know everything about laundries, which, of course, no one does.”

Anna Kanto is business development manager for Ecoblue in Tucson, Arizona, which focuses on facility water conservation.

“Most (laundry) facilities know their total water bill, but they don’t always have clear visibility into how water is being used across equipment and processes,” she says. “An outside review can help break that down and identify where the biggest opportunities are.

“For example, our audits of hotel laundries have shown that improvements like selecting the right size washer for the operation and optimizing cycle settings can often reduce laundry water use by 10–30%.”

Outside reviews often catch things that become easy to overlook in day-to-day operations.

“For example, washers may be running with more rinse cycles than necessary, loads may regularly fall below machine capacity, or older equipment may be using significantly more water than newer high-efficiency models,” says Kanto. “In some cases, the machine type itself may not be the best fit for the operation, such as using top-load units where front-load equipment would be more efficient.”

She adds that outside firms may also see opportunities to standardize equipment across multiple locations, which simplifies maintenance needs. Because it reviews many different facilities, an outside firm can often recognize when something is operating outside typical performance ranges.

Peter Mayer is principal of Water Demand Management, a Boulder, Colorado, engineering consulting firm focused on demand-side management of water resources.

“Let’s say you have an industrial laundry facility, and I think the most likely situation would be you’re looking to either replace or upgrade some equipment,” he says. “It makes sense to perhaps spend additional money to get equipment that is more water- and energy-efficient.

“To understand what that investment is and what it might mean, this is the type of thing that can absolutely be done in-house, you don’t need to hire anybody to do this. The facility could do this analysis itself. They could also use their water bills and energy bills to understand how much they currently use, and then get the specifications on other equipment and be able to make some calculations.

“But maybe you don’t want to do that yourself, or maybe you don’t have the expertise in-house to do that. Maybe you need some additional measurements associated with that. There are other factors, a variety of reasons why you might want help. Maybe you need to have a report that justifies the financial decision to someone else, to a board or some other decision-making group, and it might make sense to bring an outside firm that has some expertise in this particular area to do this particular analysis for us.”

Lombardo Associates Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts, is an environmental consulting and engineering firm specializing in the development and implementation of creative solutions to water and wastewater management challenges for municipal, commercial and industrial clients. Owner Pio Lombardo recommends finding environmental engineering firms that specialize in wastewater treatment and have experience with water conservation and reuse techniques.

He says a major benefit of using an outside firm is “independent analysis and knowledge of state-of-the-art practices. Water efficiency studies would focus on reducing water and sewer bills and energy use.” Also, outside firms can provide innovative opportunities with new technologies.

Mayer adds, “If you have a firm that’s familiar with laundry facilities, they might notice something like, you could get new equipment, but it’s going to take an exceptional amount of additional plumbing.”

“The benefit of using an outside firm like Ecolab,” shares Nathan Ortmann, RD&E group leader, Ecolab Textile Care North America, “is that we bring over a century of experience in water and laundry operations together to audit a customer’s facility with fresh eyes and an informed perspective.

“A typical Ecolab TPA (Total Plant Assessment) will identify opportunities to save 15-45% on water usage, 7-17% on energy usage, and greater than 2,000 metric tons of CO₂ in a commercial laundry plant. These savings represent more than $200,000 in financial impact for customers.

“Our (audits) follow water throughout the plant, understanding the full water balance: where water goes, does not go, and should not go. In doing so, our … team can identify potential issues or inefficiencies and understand the water and energy equipment and their functionality.”

Ortmann continues, “A fresh and informed perspective can identify issues that are often overlooked by the operators who see this equipment day in and day out. It’s easy to miss potential issues in such a busy environment where operators don’t have the time or broader industry experience necessary to optimize certain equipment and processes.”

Some examples include:

Valves/drains that malfunction.
Water in places it’s not supposed to be.
Non-contact cooling water that typically gets ignored.
Passive reuse of designated drains is incorrect.

A significant challenge for outside water audits is securing organizational buy-in, which Stinchcombe identifies as the biggest reason for project failure, regardless of technology.

“Three distinct groups have an interest in these audits: technical staff who focus on equipment, finance personnel (such as the CFO) who require a short payback period, and leadership who are interested in process continuity and corporate social responsibility,” he says.

Successful projects require these motivations to align, and defining metrics, such as a minimum acceptable payback period, must be agreed upon upfront in a project charter.

Kanto says that one challenge can be gathering the right operational data.

“Laundry facilities are busy environments, so collecting information on equipment models, load sizes, cycle settings, and usage patterns often requires some coordination between the firm and the laundry staff,” she points out. “It’s also important that any recommendations made are practical for how the laundry actually operates, not just technically efficient on paper.”

Laurie recognizes that outside firms may try to sell products that aren’t the best match for a laundry’s specific needs and equipment.

“Make sure to ask if they rep, or receive rewards for specifying, specific equipment; they may suggest more expensive equipment than is necessary,” he shares. “Staff of utilities and consultants who contract with utilities are much less likely to do that. An outside firm may be expensive, another reason to see if the local water utility has free help.”

“It might be expensive,” Mayer agrees. “You’ve got to make sure that it’s really worth it before you even do this. The next challenge is probably finding the firm.”

Ortmann shares the view that laundry operators should be cautious to avoid firms that focus on pushing technology or solutions to make a sale instead of finding what is right for the operation.

“Another challenge of working with an outside firm is that many water efficiency studies end up being a one-time event with a ‘leave-behind’ recommendation for the client to implement with little ongoing support,” he says.

“With the correct firm, there should be few challenges as they should be viewed as an extension of the company’s staff,” points out Lombardo. “Naturally, services scope, budget, and schedule need to be well-defined.”

Check back Thursday for part 2 with suggestions for finding and selecting an outside firm.