**How much property damage could we prevent if we knew about a water leak hours, days or even weeks earlier?**
That's the question we found ourselves asking after reading about Ofwat's latest Water Efficiency Lab.
We talk a lot about damp, mould and air quality.
But water deserves just as much attention.
According to Ofwat, an estimated **1–1.5 billion litres of water are lost through leaks in homes and businesses every day.**
And there's another figure that really caught our attention.
Escape-of-water claims cost UK insurers around **£1.25 billion in 2024**.
That's an enormous amount of water.
And an enormous amount of damage.
Why are we still waiting for someone to find the leak?
Traditionally, we discover many water leaks because somebody sees the consequences.
A wet ceiling.
Water on the floor.
A damaged wall.
An unusually high bill.
Or, in an empty property, somebody eventually opens the door.
By then the leak may have been running for hours or days.
So we think there's a better question:
**Why wait for the damage to tell us there's a problem?**
Prevent. Predict. Pinpoint. Fix.
Interestingly, these are essentially the four areas Ofwat is now focusing its innovation funding around.
Its £5 million Water Efficiency Lab 2 is looking for solutions that can:
**Prevent** leaks.
**Predict** where problems may occur.
**Pinpoint** the source.
**Fix** them with less disruption and cost.
Applications close on **20 October 2026**.
What interests us isn't simply the funding.
It's the direction of travel.
We're moving from reacting to water damage towards using technology and data to identify problems earlier.
Do leak sensors actually make a difference?
We believe they can — but again, a sensor isn't the complete answer.
Detecting a problem is useful.
Knowing what to do next is better.
If a monitoring system identifies unusual water activity, that information needs to reach somebody who can act.
Property manager.
Maintenance team.
Resident.
Facilities manager.
Insurer.
Contractor.
That's why we keep coming back to the same principle:
**Monitoring → Evidence → Alert → Action → Resolution**
Otherwise we've just created another alarm.
What about properties without Wi-Fi?
This is particularly important when you're dealing with multiple properties.
Housing portfolios.
Holiday accommodation.
Empty properties.
Managed buildings.
Commercial estates.
You can't always rely on resident Wi-Fi, and installing individual SIM connections across hundreds of devices adds complexity and cost.
That's why connectivity is part of the conversation we have with clients from the outset.
The objective isn't simply getting a sensor into a property.
It's creating a monitoring system that can actually scale.
One platform. Multiple risks.
This is where the wider Smart Installers approach starts becoming interesting.
Water leaks rarely exist in isolation from the wider property picture.
Neither do damp and mould, humidity, poor air quality or other environmental risks.
So why treat each one as a completely separate technology project?
We believe property monitoring should increasingly bring these risks together.
One property.
One evidence trail.
And information that reaches the right people **before a small problem becomes an expensive one.**
Ofwat's £5 million innovation programme is another indication of where things are heading.
Perhaps the future of leak management isn't finding water faster.
**It's knowing something is wrong before anybody sees the water at all.**
### Original evidence
Ofwat — *Water Efficiency Lab 2 launches to prevent, predict, pinpoint and fix customer side leakage*
Applications for Water Efficiency Lab 2 close **20 October 2026**.
---
**Protect Properties. Safeguard Tenants. Create Healthier Homes.**
*IoT monitoring, remediation and compliance — in one platform. Detecting multiple environmental housing risks such as damp and mould, water leaks and air quality across UK housing before they escalate.*
**Smart Installers | Turning Building Data into Better Decisions.**
🌐 smart-installers.co.uk
✉️ [ian@smart-installers.co.uk](mailto:ian@smart-installers.co.uk)
☎️ 0800 152 2099