Lee Hoffman
The water bill spikes. There has been no tenant report about a major leak, so the property management staff has to start knocking. An entire day is wasted before they reach door number 40 and finally identify a small leak.
For modern multifamily operations, that process is outdated and inefficient. Property teams should not have to search unit by unit just to find a running toilet or hidden water issue that could have been flagged earlier. A single running toilet can waste more than $10,000 per year, and several hidden leaks across a building can turn into a six-figure annual loss.
Every hour spent searching for a hidden leak is an hour not spent on preventive maintenance, resident issues, inspections, repairs, or building performance.
The issue is that onsite teams often lack the data to know where to look. Our Smart Toilet Monitoring helps buildings pinpoint water waste faster, so staff can focus on fixing problems instead of hunting for them.
For property managers and operations teams responsible for several buildings, the process of leak detection can be a huge drain on resources. Generally, these teams rely on a reactive model that responds to tenant complaints, higher-than-expected water bills, and prescheduled manual inspections.
These methods are slow because they start after the waste has already begun. In many cases, teams are reacting to problems that may have existed for weeks, if not months, before anyone noticed.
Leak hunting can also create unnecessary work orders, unit access coordination, tenant disruption, and repeated follow-ups. That adds more administrative work to an already stretched operations team.
A small leak may only take a few minutes to fix once it is found. The problem is that it could have spent weeks adding to the water bill before anyone flagged it.
Hunting for leaks compounds the existing financial burden that leaks create. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection says high water bills are often caused by leaking toilets, and water can flow through an open fill valve at three to five gallons per minute, wasting up to 4,000 gallons per day.1
That means every delay matters. Undetected leaks can add serious costs to annual water bills for multifamily property managers and owners, and the search process can add another layer of staff cost on top.
For property managers and owners, this creates hidden labor inefficiency alongside the water waste itself. Staff time, delayed repairs, and repeated access coordination all increase operating pressure, which can ultimately impact net operating income (NOI).
The operational cost includes:
The longer it takes to find the source, the more the building pays in wasted water, staff time, and lost efficiency.
A leaking toilet generally does not involve a burst pipe or a flooded bathroom. More often, it is a worn flapper, faulty fill valve, or issue with the internal water tank. Because these faults are often difficult to see, they can result in a steady stream of wasted water without tenants noticing.
A toilet may also run intermittently, making it harder to catch during a scheduled inspection. If maintenance staff check the unit at the wrong time, the issue may appear resolved even though the leak continues later.
In multifamily buildings, the resident may not report the issue because the building pays the water bill, or the fault does not affect their comfort. A quiet toilet leak can keep running without creating enough urgency for anyone inside the unit to flag it.
That leaves maintenance staff in the dark. Small leaks go unreported, and by the time they appear in water bills months later, the financial damage has already been done.
This challenge is one reason many multifamily operators are turning to running toilet detection technology that can identify hidden water waste without relying on resident reports or routine inspections.
Traditional leak detection depends on signals that often arrive too late, miss the source, or fail to give operations teams enough detail to act quickly.
Tenants may not notice small leaks, especially when the toilet still works normally. Even if they hear water running, they may ignore it or delay reporting it when the building pays the water bill.
Utility bills may show that water usage has increased, but they usually arrive after the waste has already happened. They also do not tell staff which unit or fixture caused the spike, so teams still need to investigate manually.
Manual inspections require staff to check many units without knowing where the problem is. In larger buildings, that can mean hours of access coordination and door knocks, only to miss leaks that start after the inspection or run intermittently.
Physically knocking on dozens of doors and performing broad manual checks is not efficient leak detection. It is a reactive approach that allows water to keep running, staff time to keep disappearing, and money to keep flowing out of the building.
Moving from a reactive approach based on tenant complaints and delayed water bills to a data-centric approach allows teams to fix leaks before water and money are flushed away.
Modern leak detection should tell teams where the likely problem is before they start knocking on doors. With better visibility, staff can move directly toward the issue instead of searching through units with limited information.
The goal is to make maintenance work more efficient. Instead of sending staff across dozens of units, property teams can respond to alerts tied to specific water waste patterns and focus their time where it is most likely to make an impact.
The Runwise Smart Toilet Monitoring system provides property managers and owners with a data-focused system for reducing water waste. Instead of waiting for a tenant complaint or sending staff door to door, teams can use real-time information to identify where running toilets may be creating unnecessary costs.
The system uses wireless sensors to detect running toilets and alert building teams quickly. These sensors help identify abnormal toilet activity, giving maintenance teams a clearer signal that a specific issue may need attention.
Alerts are delivered through the Runwise dashboard, giving property teams a centralized view of water waste issues across the building. Teams can see where action may be needed, prioritize the right units, and respond before a small leak turns into weeks of wasted water.
For operations teams, this creates a more efficient workflow. Staff can spend less time searching, reduce unnecessary door knocks, and focus on resolving confirmed issues. That improves maintenance response while giving managers better control over water waste.
Friedman Management has implemented Runwise in 93 of its buildings since 2017, and saved a staggering six million dollars with us. Results like this show how better leak visibility can reduce waste, improve operational control, and help staff work more efficiently.
Knocking on doors hoping to find a leak wastes time, resources, and staff capacity. Door-to-door leak hunting should not be the default operating model for property managers and owners.
A better approach is early detection that creates targeted responses based on live data. Combined with modern smart building controls, this approach can help property teams spend less time reacting and more time improving building performance. When teams know where water waste is likely happening, they can send staff to investigate the right unit, fix the issue faster, and reduce unnecessary disruption across the building.
Contact Runwise to learn how quickly you could reduce costs (average savings over 20%) with Smart Toilet Monitoring that helps your buildings pinpoint water waste, reduce running toilet losses, and avoid door-to-door search.
Door-to-door leak detection forces staff to search across multiple units before they know where the problem is. This wastes time, delays repairs, disrupts tenants, and allows water waste to continue while teams look for the source.
Running toilets often do not cause visible damage or urgent complaints. They can run quietly, intermittently, or unnoticed until a delayed water bill shows higher usage.
Smart toilet monitoring uses wireless sensors to detect running toilets and alert building teams quickly. This helps staff investigate likely problem units instead of searching blindly across dozens of doors.
