Danish water leak detection specialist Leif Koch A/S has used HWM’s PermaNet to save millions of krone for Denmark’s largest utility company HOFOR.

PermaNet allowed Leif Koch A/S, for the first time, to install 185 data loggers in Copenhagen on a permanent basis over a five-year period. The permanent installation enabled the company to quickly find out when and where a leak had occurred. Previously, the firm had used a lift-and-shift method and changed the location every 48 hours.

On just the second day of the project, the leak detection team identified a leak. Instead of tackling it, they decided to leave it and see how many days would elapse before the water reached the surface. After 10 days in which nothing happened, the team dug down to the leak and discovered that the water was running directly into the sewer.

“If we had conducted a study of this particular area using our old method a week before the leak began,” explained Kim Roar, team leader at HOFOR, “it would have been three years before we returned to this area and discovered the leak. In other words, the leak would have been continuously running into the sewer for three years. By our rough calculations, this leak alone would have cost us 1.2m krone [£116K].”

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