We have a number of remote monitoring systems that will utilise in a number of applications within our services. in particular, remote monitoring solutions can be directly beneficial to various water damage management services. This can include some of the following professional services we offer locally:

• Water Leak Detection (after)
• Flood Damage Management
• Property Drying
• Damp and Mould Services
• Condensation Problems

In this practical and useful guide will explain what remote monitoring is, how it works and the benefits it brings to enhance these various services.

What is Remote Monitoring?

There are a number of remote monitoring solutions that we utilise. However, the main one allows us to track psychrometric readings from hygrometer devices from a remote location. For a number of our services, we utilise professional moisture meters and damp meters which are highly calibrated to track both moisture in the air (including relative humidity) and within specific materials. However, typically these devices hand-held and used on site by our water damage management technicians.

Moisture meters are highly beneficial and effective pieces of equipment that we use regularly. However, the downside of them is that when you are away from the customers property, you cannot use them to track measurements over time without being onsite. This is where remote monitoring really comes to fore, taking readings 24/7, logging them and allowing us to track and remotely monitor environmental conditions. More on that next.

Remote Monitoring Benefits

With remote monitoring equipment, the data that it captures allows us to have a virtual presence on site at any point to keep an eye on current and past levels of things such as relative humidity, and on top of that track progress on drying charts to see how close we are to our target trying levels.

Our remote monitoring solution also has automated smart alerts that will notify us within seconds once any of the readings hits a predetermined level that we have specified. This can, for example, alert our team either in the office or field based staff that a property is close to being dry.

Without this, we rely on more traditional methods sending out our technicians to do what we call a ‘monitor visit’ to take these readings in a property. Clearly we still do this, at our final visit to certify that the property is dry, however, with the addition of remote monitoring we can be smarter with this.

Remote monitoring solutions also allow us to gather useful experience over time to help inform our estimates on how long a property will take to dry, the optimal level of drying equipment and energy usage within that drying – including for heaters, fans and dehumidifiers.

Clearly this brings onto a final benefit which is that it helps with being environmentally friendly as, if we can reduce energy consumption, then we can help to reduce the environmental impact of our services too. Many of our remote monitoring solutions also allow us to track energy usage. On top of this, if we can save on van journeys then we reduce the amount of petrol or diesel we use on visiting properties.

Remote Monitoring Applications

Our remote monitoring solutions can help in a number of applications. We have already mentioned about how it can help to track the drying of a property after a water leak, flooding or other water damage issue. However, there are a number of other additional applications that it can be useful for too. several of these are highlighted in our information video below:

As you can see, remote monitoring can also be beneficial for situations involving mould, damp (including rising damp and penetrating damp), condensation, ventilation and other interior climate monitoring. For example, it can be used to see how effective a property’s heating and insulation is at both generating and holding heat, which can be especially useful in winter months.

Given that our solution is a multi-room remote monitoring solution we can track data across many rooms in a property to compare reading’s in living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms (on that – see our article about bathroom leaks), bedrooms, basements and other locations in the property. From this we can generate bespoke reports.

We offer both ‘active’ remote monitoring solutions and ‘passive’ remote monitoring, which is often refer to as data logging, we will explain the differences now.

Remote Monitoring vs Data Logging

The difference between remote monitoring and data logging is fairly straight forward. Basically, remote monitoring (as the name suggests) allows you to monitor readings from a remote location at any point. Data logging however, uses smart Bluetooth enabled devices, which are left within a property or location tracking or ‘logging’ data over time (which can be months or years if needed).

Unlike remote monitoring solutions, data loggers cannot generally be accessed from a remote location they need to be collected and the data extracted or a technician needs to be onsite to connect to download the data. The upside of data logging is that the installation is generally quicker and as not rely on having a Wi-Fi connection and run off batteries. On that specific point, our about monitoring solution utilises a mobile signal and so we are not connecting to our customers Wi-Fi service, we use our own.

The service provider will use for our mobile Wi-Fi coverage has excellent signal availability across the main regions that we cover, which is also helpful where Wi-Fi doesn’t exist in a home or business.

Let’s now look at the type of data both remote monitoring and data logging solutions can collect.

Remote Monitoring – Measurements

Our remote monitoring solution, directly tracks the following data:

• Temperature
• Relative Humidity
• Dew Point
• Vapour Pressure

These readings can also be combined to track other associated derived measures and important KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that we utilise to help understand each unique situation. This is important because, experience shows that most properties are unique depending on a number of factors that exist there.

For example, in our article about how to reduce humidity in houses we mentioned that the number of occupants, including pets, can have an impact on the levels of moisture in the air in a property. So even if you had two absolutely identical houses and one had an individual occupant but another had a large family in there, you would expect very different readings to be collected.

This brings us onto another significant benefit of remote monitoring, in that it allows you to see how certain activity that takes place within properties at a specific time can have an impact on things such as relative humidity. For example, you can see how somebody having a bath or shower can impact on relative humidity from the steam generated from them. this is not only in the direct location of that shower (the bathroom or ensuite) but also adjoining rooms.

Such information and data can be especially beneficial when looking at properties with damp, condensation and mould issues can provide very useful insight into factors that may be contributing to mould – we discuss this in our excellent article about mould on walls.

Remote Monitoring – Conclusion

In summary and to conclude remote monitoring solutions is a very beneficial addition to our service, giving excellent real-time data and alerts in a wide variety of applications. not only does this allow us to enhance our service, but with all the benefits mentioned above, we can keep our customers informed on progress which allows them to understand the situation in their property and a greater understanding of timescales for the work being carried out.

A good example is to help with the planning of what is known as the reinstatement phase of water damage management, which often comes after drying. As this often involves other contractors and trades (builders, plumbers, decorators etc) these can potentially be booked in with greater certainty.

We hope you found our guide to remote monitoring informative and useful. To find out more contact our local friendly team who will be glad to help. Remember, we offer a bespoke and tailored service to your unique situation, incident and property design and layout.

We provide a number of damage management services, we can help you deal with this.

Remote Monitoring Solutions – Other Useful Information

Here are a few other similar guides related to this topic that you may find useful to see too:

• Pressure Drying Benefits
• Leak Detectors to Find a Water Leak
• Thermal Imaging Leak Detection
• Damp on Walls Causes
• Boiler Pressure Keeps Dropping?

If you have a water leak contact and are interested in our trace and access services in Yorkshire our friendly and experienced team for help.

At Rainbow Restoration – York & Yorkshire Coast we are experts in Leak Detection, including business water leaks, so if you need help finding a water leak or getting your property back to normal after a water damage or a flood, get in touch with our friendly local team who will be happy to help you with this. We are based in York and help with water leak detection in York.