People usually imagine an upturned house as an illustration of flood damage. A flooded basement, damaged furniture, and soggy carpets, for example. However, commercial properties’ floods are, in reality, far more multifaceted and the resulting issues can be way more damaging than just one single thing.
You see, when your house is flooded, it affects you your family mostly. But a commercial flood may be a disaster for employees and company’s workers and the like besides the customers so it’s not only about closing a room for a while it could be shutting down the entire business.
Loss of money, production or work stoppage, increased possibility of being sued, it’s all part of a much bigger challenge.
Nevertheless, many businesses continue on without making flood monitoring, even a small part of their day to day operations. That is not for lack of care on their part, but it just hasn’t risen to the top of their agenda so they can even consider it a problem, only until their premises are flooded.
Why Commercial Spaces Are Particularly Vulnerable
Commercial buildings have a lot working against them when it comes to water damage.
For starters, they’re often larger and more complex than residential properties. There are more pipes running through the walls. More HVAC systems pulling condensate and managing drainage. More appliances, more bathrooms, more kitchens or utility rooms depending on the type of business. Each of those systems is a potential failure point.
And then there’s the matter of size itself. At home, you’re probably going to notice a leak under the sink fairly easily because you’re in that space quite frequently. But in a big commercial building a leak slowly leaking behind a wall in a storage area could stay unnoticed for weeks. When finally someone catches the sight of the damage, the mold is already in, structural components have been attacked, and the cost to fix it will be way higher than what it should have been.
After-hours vulnerability is another factor that doesn’t get talked about enough. Offices, warehouses, and retail spaces sit empty at night. A pipe that bursts at 11 p.m. on a Thursday has roughly eight to nine hours to do damage before anyone walks through the door on Friday morning. In that time, water spreads across floors, seeps into walls, ruins stock, destroys equipment, and creates conditions that aren’t safe for staff to return to.
There’s also the issue of below-grade spaces. Basements, parking structures, loading docks — these areas are common in commercial buildings and they’re exactly the kind of spaces that accumulate water fast during heavy rain events or plumbing failures.
The Real Cost of Ignoring the Risk
Let’s put some numbers around this, because the scale of commercial flood damage surprises a lot of people.
Water damage is consistently one of the most common — and most expensive — types of commercial property insurance claims. Depending on the nature of the business, a single flood event can mean:
- Replacement of IT equipment, servers, or point-of-sale systems
- Destruction of inventory or raw materials
- Damage to fit-outs, fixtures, and furniture
- Structural repairs to flooring, walls, and ceilings
- Mold remediation, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars
- Temporary relocation costs while the property is repaired
- Lost revenue during the period of closure
And that’s before you factor in the less obvious costs — the staff who can’t come to work, the clients who move on because you couldn’t service them, the reputational hit if the situation becomes visible to the public.
Insurance helps, but it doesn’t cover everything. Most policies have exclusions, excesses, and coverage limits that leave businesses out of pocket on significant portions of the damage. And even a fully covered claim comes with weeks or months of disruption that money alone can’t fix.
The point isn’t to be alarmist about this. The point is that the risk is real and the costs are substantial — and most of it is preventable with the right setup in place.
Where Commercial Flood Risk Actually Comes From
Not all flooding comes from storms. In fact, the majority of commercial water damage events are caused by internal failures rather than external weather events.
Plumbing issues are the main cause. Besides the age of the pipe, corroded connections, higher water pressure, and naturally wear down the pipes, are all leading factors. Bursting of pipes in commercial buildings can discharge a huge amount of water within minutes.
Along with that, HVAC units are also a great source for potential leaks. Air-conditioned units make condensate and need to have it drained. If the drain lines are clogged or the drainage pan is over filled with water, that water has now the chance to go somewhere that it’s not supposed to be usually inside the walls, the ceiling, or the equipment below it.
Hot water systems and steam boilers also are a significant risk especially at large buildings where these type of systems are of high capacity. A failure of a pressure release valve or a corroded tank could lead to a fast and large release of water.
In times of downpours, roof water discharge deficiencies become very apparent. Blockage in drainage channels, insufficient water drainage capability, and ponding over flat roofs can all eventually lead to infiltration of water into the building through its envelope.
Malfunction of sprinkler systems happens less frequently but nonetheless are not to be forgotten, accidentally activated or failed sprinkler heads can cause water being poured into a space very fast.
Figuring out the points where the threats originate can allow companies to determine where their monitoring efforts should be most concentrated.
Staying Ahead of It: What Smart Commercial Properties Are Doing
The businesses that handle water risk best aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones that have thought carefully about where their vulnerabilities are and put monitoring in place to catch problems early.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Placement of sensors in high-risk areas. Water sensors installed near HVAC drain pans, under bathroom and kitchen sinks, near hot water supply systems, and at the basement perimeters, are able to detect traces of moisture at the same time it appears hours or days later!
Automated warnings addressed to several recipients. A single point of contact at the commercial side is insufficient. The systems that automatically notify building owners and facility managers as well as the round-the-clock support team guarantee that the required people will be able to respond promptly at every moment even during a long weekend after 2 a.m.
Connecting with building management systems. Most large commercial buildings use BMS technology platforms to handle different aspects of a building’s operations. Today, water leakage alarm systems can be plugged into these platforms to give facility teams an overview of the building’s health and allow for triggering certain automated actions such as a valve to be closed if a sensor is activated.
Maintaining a regular inspection programme. The technology does not replace the need for regular maintenance. If a system is supported by regular inspections of plumbers, drainage, and HVAC, then leaks can be detected at an early stage. Discovering a corroded part during a routine inspection is way better than waiting until it has failed completely.
Defining response procedures. One might expect that businesses have a set of clear steps for dealing with an emergency if a water alarm sounds, but in fact most of them don’t. Who has to be informed? Who can enter the location in question? Where is the shut-off valve of the main water supply? Recording and keeping those answers ready for reference is what prevents wasting a lot of valuable time when the situation calls for a reaction.
The Case for Getting Proactive
Commercial properties typically take a long time to deal with this sort of issue. There are budgets to figure out, different priorities to consider, and people generally like to tackle an issue when it’s already occurred rather than beforehand.
On the other hand, the shops and companies that were heavily flooded and suffered water damage have one thing in common: they wish they had taken steps sooner. The price of an installation that monitors the water, even a thorough one, only a small portion of a single major water event cleanup costs.
Being proactive in a commercial building about flood risk doesn’t mean you are being overly paranoid. Instead, it means being a company that can be a victim yet not completely knocked down and can still function. The difference is huge between early detection of water damage and that which has been spreading for hours.
Flood detection is aimed at eliminating the difference between those two scenarios.