Ep 055 - Why Leak Detection is the Smartest Home Investment

Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast, where you'll discover strategies to save money, save time, and be better organized in managing your largest financial asset and biggest expense, your home. Your hosts, John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson, who are co-founders of HomeZada, have been supporting homeowners for over 20 years. They are here to share with you their tips and suggestions, as well as interviews with industry experts, with the goal of helping you become a smarter homeowner. Now, here's your hosts, Jon and Beth.

What if homeowners could catch leaks before they ever became a problem? What would that change about how we care for our homes? Today's guest, Ian Green, specializes in something every homeowner should care about. But most people don't think about until it's too late. Leak detection. They help homeowners catch hidden water issues early, avoid expensive repairs, and I can attest to that if you guys have remembered my previous podcast, which we'll get to, and use smarter tools to stay ahead of damage. If you've ever worried about what's happening behind your walls or under your floors or in your attic and ceilings, this conversation is for you. So, Ian, thank you so much for being with us. I'm so excited about this topic. Thank you. Because I too did not know about these metering systems and had to get one after the fact, after I experienced my own water damage, which I then processed easily. But not everybody's in that situation, and sometimes these damages can be absolutely exorbitant and off the charts. So what inspired the creation of FlowLogic? I mean, we obviously know people need this, but what inspired it and how can people understand a little bit more about FlowLogic?

It's great to be here and join you today and talk about, to your point, a topic that— or a product or a technology that a lot of people don't know about, but everybody could use. And that's really what started FlowLogic. It was the whole necessity is the mother of invention. Our founder Chuck DeSmet actually founded FlowLogic back in 1999. Plumbing leaks were a problem back then as well. Technology wasn't as far along as it is today, obviously. But even back then, he recognized a technology that could prevent water losses. He had a coworker who went away for a week and came home and his His house was absolutely flooded. He had a toilet that was— the line that had ruptured and just ran for weeks and weeks. Oh my gosh. So you're talking thousands and thousands of gallons of water that came into this home. And he was an R&D type of person and thought, well, there's gotta be a way to see this and then prevent it. Even if you're not home, shut the water off if it sees a leak. And that's what FlowLogic was invented to do. It was the first flow-based leak detection product on the market. And we're still around, obviously, 'cause leaks are still a problem. Technology has gotten a lot better, and today we are selling a 6th generation FlowLogic system.

That's awesome. Now, as part of this, one of the questions I want to ask you is, how does it actually determine and shut this off? And then I want to go into— I'm going to take a sidebar and go into insurances. But first, how does the system actually detect the leaks and How can you control the system remotely, like you said?

Yeah, great question. One of the most common questions that homeowners will ask us, a lot of times they've been told by their insurance company they need to put a device in.

Yeah.

And it's very sort of abstract and needs to be demystified, but they work under the simple principle that typical water use has defined starts and stops. You wash your hands, you flush your toilet, you take a shower. There's always a start and a stop to when the water used when it's being intentionally used, whereas leaks, when they start, they typically just keep on going. So systems like FlowLogic are designed to monitor water use events and duration of water flow and to flag when water's been flowing abnormally long. And there's some nuance to that. There's, for FlowLogic for example, there's a home mode and away mode where you can define for how long would be typical for your water use based on your household and how you use water.

Yeah.

You set your— can set your own parameters, which helps avoid the nuisance shutoffs. But when the leak starts, which can definitely happen even when you're at home, a little sneaky pipe behind the wall could start to leak, and you may not realize those small leaks for quite some time until real damage has happened. But systems like FlowJack are designed to see that right when it starts, recognize when that's been going for too long based on your occupancy of the home, and then shut it off automatically and then alert you To your question about the, the system has an app, you get an alert on your app that water has been shut off automatically. You know for how long it's been flowing, and then it helps you kind of hunt down what's going on and, uh, and fix the issue.

Which I think is extremely critical because everyone here who's listened to this podcast before has heard about the story that John and I experienced on our water leak, and it was behind a wall. And it was, um, just FYI, it was faulty wire, faulty piping.

Oh.

That the company's no longer in business. And people are stunned that our piping actually lasted as long as it did. But we really do take care of our house. But, um, one of the things, like, I have so many questions, like, and now I've gotta control myself cuz I have so many questions.

Okay.

One of the things That, um, we noticed too is a lot of insurance companies talk about water being like one of their worst nightmares as an insurance company because the majority of their claims are some sort of water damage. And you explained leaks behind pipes, you explained leaks from toilets, and All kinds of toilet issues can happen. And God forbid if that toilet is upstairs and leaks all the way downstairs, that's a big problem. But what are other areas that you and your company has seen where leaks are prominent and people are unaware of it?

Yeah, it's a great question. Your example of a leak behind a wall reminds me of a point we make to new homeowners who say, well, my house is new, so I mean, I've gotta be good for at least 10 or 20 years before things Start to deteriorate. What you don't realize is a lot of times, unfortunately, nails find their way into pipes, and those act like corks that are keeping that, that hole plugged until the nail starts to rust, and then eventually it starts to leak. That's a very common leak in newer homes. Or something may not be put together quite right. The plumber maybe has a bad day, a little bit of an off day. Their pressure check shows everything's okay, but actually that fitting didn't get put together quite right.

Totally.

They can happen in all sorts of places. I mean, I've heard stories of a bear that broke into somebody's condo in California and was looking for food in the pantry and broke a pipe, and that caused a leak. They weren't there and it destroyed their entire place. So there's really an unlimited number of places that leaks can happen. Toilets are the most common cause.

Yes.

We've all got toilets, right? So the bigger your house, the more bathrooms you have, the more risk you have. So it really is the primary area of insurance claims, right Right behind wind and hail. So, it's categorized as non-weather water. So, water that comes from a flooding basement or from a leaky roof is its own category. Non-weather water is the second category of claims, right behind wind and hail. The thing about it, though, is that's— this is the one category that can be prevented. Essentially, you can prevent these claims. You can't really prevent thunderstorms and hailstorms and hurricanes and wildfires.

Right.

And all these terrible things that are Driving up insurance rates for everybody, making it hard to get insurance. But the one thing that we can control is non-weather water, which is essentially plumbing leaks through technology like FlowLogic.

Which is brilliant. And so, to your point, you talked about the bear. It made me think of another set of stories I've heard from people locally in California. They will have critters. I call them critters because They could be squirrels, rats, mice, whatever. If they are trying to get to water in dry areas, they will literally chew through the pipes as well. And people in your attic and other places, and people are unaware of that, and they're like, seriously? And I'm like, yeah, it's happened to many of our customers at— on the HomeZada front that they've said, this has been crazy. You think these critters don't want to get in your home, but they actually are getting in there to get to something. And they feel the water comes through.

No matter how resilient you think your home is, there's just so many different types of risk from freezing pipes to failing fittings to critters. So many different types of things can initiate those plumbing leaks, and if you're not there, not right on top of it to see it, and you don't have a device that's designed to catch them and shut them off automatically, that's where the pain happens. And, you know, there's really never been There's never been a convenient time to have a plumbing leak and—

Never.

Plumbing leak damage, but it's even worse now because, you know, it's more expensive than ever. The cost of materials has increased. It's hard to find good trade people to fix things. So, you know, there's the financial hit of having to pay your premium. As long as you've got insurance, you're still getting a hit there. And then being out of your home and not being able to utilize your home while it's taking forever to get it fixed. Is just no fun. And it's, uh, it's a really painful experience that, uh, you can, you can, you fortunately can prevent if you're doing the right thing, using the right devices.

Yeah. And to your point, um, even our small water damage took, I'd say, 9 months to repair because of supply issues, meaning certain— because we had minimal damage, but certain carpets weren't available.

Yeah.

And we had to, we had to wait till they got in and then get installed. And then there was challenges with even the installation of it. Um, and then that had to be redone. Like just one thing after another had some delays. And then if you've got work and/or personal travel involved in that, you personally will delay your ability to get the job done quickly. And I know that was part of our challenge as well because We have business and personal travel involved in our schedules as well as everything else. And I'm just not the person that leaves contractors in my house when I'm gone. So that's just me personally. But to your point, there's a lot more to it than just the actual financial damage.

Absolutely. There's something that nobody wants to experience. The average plumbing leak claim nationally is around $13,000 to fix. And that's for the typical, you know, average. And then we work with a lot of insurers who insure, you know, higher-valued homes. In the higher value, we call it high net worth area, plumbing leaks are actually the number one area of claims. It's about half of the claim volume in dollars.

Yeah.

And those average claims are approaching 6 figures in terms of what they cost and putting people out of their homes for up to 6 months at a time. You know, it makes sense. Larger homes, more expensive homes are going to have higher cost damage, but they've— they're also at higher risk because they've got more toilets and bathrooms and things that actually are going to potentially break. And the reality is, no matter how resilient and how good you've built your home, Yeah. and how good the materials are, nothing lasts forever. Like, that's just one of those realities. None of what we are not going to last forever. Nothing. Everything's impermanent. And the things in our home are part of that. So It's not really a matter of if, but when is this finally gonna break down and fail? That's why we need to have technologies and devices that are available today to, you know, to face that reality.

Yeah, and so what makes FlowLogic different from other detection devices? And then how would people actually get started using something like this?

Yeah, so there's a variety of leak detection Uh-huh. Products available on the market today. Everything from the just little sensors that some just make noise locally if they hit water, some will ping your phone through Wi-Fi but won't shut the water off. Some of those even have valves that are associated with them, you know, and anything is better than nothing.

Sure.

But there is a spectrum. So FlowLogic is focused primarily on being flow-based, so it fits in the pipe, monitors all water use. sees abnormal flow. And part of what makes FlowLogic different from other flow-based devices is our device can see flow beginning as small as half an ounce per minute. So very low amounts of flow in real time, we're able to monitor that based on the way that we sense flow, different from others that may be less expensive products that need more. Some of them need a quart, a pint or so per minute to be flowing before they can see it in real time.

Yeah.

It's got a greater perspective of any size leak in real time. FlowLogic has valve sizes up to 2 inches, so any size property can be accommodated with FlowLogic. It also comes with battery backup. A lot of times leaks are associated with power failures and freezing pipes, so if you don't have battery backup, you know, that could have a leak happen unchecked. FlowLogic, every system has battery backup. For that redundancy.

It's a big deal.

And it's also got local control. So you, you certainly have the app to get notifications, change settings, turn water off and on, but there's always also a local control with the Logic where you can just go and simply push a button to change a mode or to turn water back on or off. And that's helpful because, you know, a lot of us have housekeepers and folks in our homes who may be using water but don't have access, and we don't want them to have access to the app. into the rest of our controls. But that local control aspect gives, gives even more user-friendliness to the FlowLogic system.

So speaking of which, so that's a good point. Does FlowLogic, the system, have to be installed— excuse me— during construction of a house, or can it be installed after the fact, or both?

Yeah, the vast majority of leak detection devices are installed after the fact.

Okay.

In fact, we used to survey our customers. Most are doing it after a leak because they realize, wow, that's something I should have had, or their insurance company's saying, hey, you still want to have insurance? You better put a device in. That's starting to change. We're starting to see people do it more proactively now, which is fantastic. And a lot of that's just through becoming aware of it. Most people still aren't aware these devices exist. So that's why conversations like this are so valuable to me and to everybody. But, uh, so, so it can go either new construction, which would be the best scenario, or most is post-construction. Um, you know, it's not, um, terribly complicated plumbing work. It's essentially a valve, so you got to cut the pipe and stick a valve in. It does need power. They don't use much power. You just need an outlet somewhere nearby to plug it in, and then, and then it gets online, and that's where you can utilize the app and change settings and Do a lot of more interesting things functionally with it.

Which is— which, when you bring up the details of the FlowLogic system, you bring up the precision of it. I mean, and the reason why I thought that was really important is because for anyone out there who has had a leak or who hasn't had a leak, oftentimes it starts with that simple little thing. And in our case, the faulty wiring. It took a long time for it to really show itself. And who knows how long it had been leaking? We don't think it was that long, but it was definitely longer than the moment we got notified that night and at 4:00 AM in the morning. But the reason why I think these devices actually provide more value as well is when you can detect that precision early on.

Mm-hmm.

You can potentially avoid other downstream effects like potential mold buildup or any other kind of situation that can actually make people sick in their home.

Yeah, we like to call it, you know, we, you, you want a mop-up, not a, not a tear-out.

Yeah.

You know, there's gonna, only, only way to catch a leak is for there to be a leak. So there's, there's gotta be a leak. But you're right, a lot of leaks start with a failing component. They start with a, with a little drip or a little, you know, pinhole spray. And then build over time. That's why in the design of FlowLogic, we believed it was important to be able to sense real-time flow at a very low level. We don't use metering technology. So a lot of the other devices out there, a lot of them that are perhaps lower price points, they're using basically water meter technology. And that's great if you want to monitor how many gallons you're using and sort of keep track of your total usage.

Yeah.

That is, if your utility doesn't already provide that for free. A lot of utilities, you can actually log on and see your usage for free. FlowLogic uses a different type of flow sensing technology that's focused on being able to see flow at those very low levels, as low as half an ounce per minute versus up to a pint or more that's required for some of the other devices that use metering technology.

Yeah, and we talked about insurance briefly. Insurance companies, as far as I know today, have not mandated these systems, but I believe in some cases there's discounted rates depending on which insurance company you have if you do have one of these systems.

Yeah, you're right. That's evolving quickly. Yeah. So they're not quite like smoke detectors where it's like, hey, you've got to have a smoke detector to have, you know, home insurance. Although there are more carriers who are based on different property values, their occupancy, if they're a secondary home, it's getting more and more common that they are requiring systems as a condition of coverage for those homes that are higher risk, larger homes, homes in cold environments that are not always occupied. So we are seeing requirements, in fact. So just to get insurance, you got to have a device. And then we're also seeing a lot of premium discounting, you know, incentives to install a device, which in most cases over not too long of a time, maybe a few years, maybe a few more, it's going to pay for the cost of the device. That savings you're going to get on your insurance will pay for the device that you've put in. And there's really no price to put on peace of mind. That's really the—

Correct.

The thing you get with, with a system like FlowLogic is the peace of mind that That huge risk category that everybody else is exposed to has been significantly reduced for you because you took action and installed this technology.

Yeah. And for people on, uh, who are listening to this podcast, just as an FYI, my damage on my home was minimal because we knew where our water shutoff valves are and everything else, and we mitigated things.

But always know where your shutoff valves are. Public service announcement. For some people, that's actually the meter. You may not have a shutoff valve if you got an old house. So just to know where it is. I like to label mine, you know, if someone else is there and doesn't know.

Smart move.

Big, big, big. Actually, I got some, some neon tape and wrote it on with Sharpie and put it on shut off. So make sure you've done that.

It's so funny. Yeah, because I log my husband showing me how to shut it off and I put the video in HomeZada. That's what I do because it's so funny. Because if I have to access it, I log in. But, um, The other thing is too, for people who are out there as well, Ian gently told people that sometimes your, um, expenses and insurance claims are between $13,000 and they can get up to 6 figures. I can attest that I know a friend of a friend whose toilet went out recently, and I mean within the last 2 years.

Mm-hmm.

And it was on the second floor or something to that effect. And their entire first floor, the entire first floor, they were gone for a week. The entire first floor was gone. Cabinets, because it, it rotted out the cabinets. Mm-hmm. Flooring, everything, carpet. It cost them easily over $250,000 to replace everything. And that was their claim. And they could not live in their house for almost a year.

Yeah. And that's just, that's a terrible situation to be in. That's really traumatic. You know, nobody wants that.

Terrible. And then that just increases all the expenses for the insurance companies too. So, it's like everybody's at a loss here and nothing's fun for anybody.

It's costing all of us. We're all, our premiums pay for other people's claims, right? And the insurance market's getting tougher and tougher. There's been, we all watch the news and we hear about more, more superstorms and wildfires and freeze events in Texas where there usually isn't. just weirder weather that's causing more damaging events, wildfires and things. You know, there's, there's a, there's a finite insurance pool that we're all paying into.

Correct.

With our carrier that's covering these. So, um, you know, it's protect yourself and your own way of life, but when you're doing this, you're actually kind of helping the greater good. That's not to mention saving water. You know, water scarcity is, uh, is an issue in a lot of parts of the country all year long. In certain parts of the country, like in North Carolina where I am, Right now we're in a pretty significant drought. We're starting to see water restrictions. It's actually estimated that about 12% of water that goes into homes is wasted on leaks. All you need is a running toilet and all of a sudden hundreds or thousands of gallons. So yeah, in the aggregate, it's about 12% of total water. So when you have a system like FlowLogic that's gonna see even the really small amounts of water flow, you know, running toilet, it happens to be going down the drain and being a wasteful one, but it is a leak.

Right.

So being able to catch those leaks, It's also going to just help preserve, you know, a precious resource in our water table and our water reservoirs.

Totally. And so, the other thing that I'm going to bring up, I don't know if Ian's lived through this, but I have. I live in California, so we, on a regular basis, have, you know, scheduled outages for electric. Living without electric is a cakewalk compared to living without water.

Right.

And the biggest thing my husband was always frustrated by, it sounds funny, but he's like, are you serious? I gotta go buy bottled water to make my coffee. He goes, I need my coffee. I need my coffee. And you can, you cannot do anything in your house that requires water. It's not just showering and this, that, the other. It's like washing dishes. And that then adds up and people start using paper plates and stuff. And then to your point, we're contributing more to the landfills. And I was like, we are not doing that. We are definitely not doing that. We'll figure it out, but we're not doing that.

Yeah, if we just stop the leaks that happen in people's homes, you know, water— there would be much less water scarcity. So, yes, simple as that.

That's brilliant. So we've talked about, like, the ROI of having leak detection is reduce on the environmental impact. Um, we've talked about the peace of mind that it comes with it. We've talked about the financial aspect of it. And by the way, for most people who aren't on the phone or, or on the video, excuse me, in the, um, listening to the podcast, the damage of the pipe sometimes is what you have to come out of pocket for sometimes depending on your insurance company. So your claim is that the damage the water makes to the rest of the house but not to the pipes, at least not in my case.

Interesting.

I had to pay for the pipes.

You're always going to pay something, you know, sometimes premiums. And, you know, it's— there's certain insurance policies, um, some of the— especially in some places that are called CAT zones, catastrophic zones, like wildfire zones. There's— it's tough to get insurance in these places. Some folks are using what's called non-admitted insurance, so it's not— doesn't have to play by the rules. It's like excess and surplus insurance policies. Some of those policies are, for example, not covering water damage. They're saying, okay, we'll cover you for a wildfire, you're in that zone, But other things, no. Even more important to get advice for situations like that.

Yeah. And so we're not trying to scare anybody. We're just trying to give you data about—

This is the facts.

That's right. Exactly. These are just the facts. And there are ways to prevent this with systems like water detection systems like FlowLogic. And that's why Ian is here to talk about this. Now, Ian, before we leave, is there anything else you'd like to tell people? And then Of course, please tell people where they can find information about FlowLogic.

Well, I've explained a little bit about how these systems work, but there's probably folks thinking, well, okay, what about my irrigation system? What if I wanna pressure wash my house? Or I've got a really big bathtub, I only use it every month or something like that. So how's this gonna not mistake my intentional use from, from a leak? The answer's gonna be different based on the device you have. With FlowLogic, We intentionally are letting the user define their settings. If you've got a household full of 3 teenagers who take 45-minute showers, your home mode may need to be an hour. You may need to allow an hour of continuous flow. If it's just a couple folks who take 10-minute showers, you may need 30 minutes in the home mode. You can vary that based on how you use water. You can also adjust the flow sensitivity. Some folks have evaporative humidifiers keeping their air Good point. At a healthy humidity level in the wintertime, especially when heat's running, those trickle a few ounces of water to feed the— you can adjust the flow sensitivity on FlowLogic. You can dial in the settings that are gonna be right for your home and how you use water to prevent those nuisance shutoffs. And then there's things like bypass mode, and you can get an alert, hey, I'm about to shut the water off. That's what I've got set up on my device. I like to garden, and I'll stick the sprinkler out there to water my tomato plants. And I'll forget sometimes to put it in a bypass mode, but I'll get an alert saying, hey, the water's about to be shut off. And I just push a button that says, oh yeah, go to the snooze mode for a few hours to let that keep happening. So you can always adjust and accommodate for the nuance of heavy water use. Otherwise, you can dial it in to how you typically use water. Waterjet can also talk to your irrigation system, and the irrigation system can tell it that it's using water. It can talk to your water softener. It can tell a recirc pump on your hot water system to stop pumping water if it turns off the water, or even if you go to the away mode, it can tell that to stop pumping water so you're not recirculating hot water when you're not there, make your home more efficient.

Smart.

Save electricity or gas. So it's a very integrated system that becomes part of your smart home, but it's set up, it's integrated, it's dialed in, and then you don't have to think about it. You're not gonna have to pull up your phone and say, hey, I'm about to take a shower, or Any sort of— there's not additional steps you need to take once the system is installed and dialed in. So that's something that I hope everybody feels comfortable with. Once you get one of these systems and get it dialed in, there's no more work to be done. You just enjoy the peace of mind that you have it there.

That's fantastic. Now, how can everybody find out more about FloLogic?

Yeah, so our website is FloLogic, and FloLogic is spelled F-L-O-L-O-G-I-C. There's not a W in there. Flowlogic.com. There you can learn more about the Flowlogic system, how our system works, and one of the things that we pride ourselves on is our customer support. So if you have a question, just give us a call, and that's 877-Flowlogic is the phone number, 877-356-5644. And then once you have a device, if you have a question, we're always there for you as well. That's part of how we like to take care of our customers.

Perfect. And so I did have another question before we leave. So everyone, we all know where we can find FlowLogic, and we will put all of this information in the show notes. But last question is, does the FlowLogic metering system require a plumber to put it on, or does— or can people do it DIY? Just a generic question.

Yeah, well, you do have to cut a pipe. The only way to measure flow is to be in the pipe, seeing the water coursing through the pipe. Yeah, because remember, no matter where a leak happens, it's gonna be fed through that pipe. So if you can see virtually any size leak, you'll be able to catch it. So typically, yes. Unless you're super handy and know how to cut pipes and things, there are a fraction of folks out there who are in that camp, but most folks, best thing to do is just hire a plumber. Any plumber has the skills to put a system in because it's essentially just a valve. And then FlowLogic has a lot of plumbers that we work with who have experience with our product. We can always refer you to one of those if you give us a call.

Fantastic. I love that. So I hope you found this podcast useful and amazing because I did myself. I have even— I have metering systems after my water damage. But for anybody who is out there, please get prepared prior to. You will avoid the expense and the nuance and nuisance of water damage. I can attest to it. It's not something you want to play with. Ours ran smoothly, but that's because of the people we are. Just don't even experience it. Go out there and get your water detection meters. And thank you, Ian, so much for being here.

Thank you.

If anyone else finds this valuable, please share it with everyone you know, especially because anyone who doesn't have a flow detection meter needs it now. Water detection, we need it right now. Go get it. But thank you so much for being as smart, being A listener and audience of Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast. Can you tell I'm super excited today about this conversation? Thank you so much and have a glorious day.

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