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Nearly 4,000 Sensors Across 80 Buildings: Kilroy Realty's Water Detection Program Benefits Facilities, Security, and Insurance
Kilroy Realty has nearly 4,000 water sensors in the common areas of 80 of its buildings. That count leaves out tenant space entirely, where thousands more sit under leases requiring tenants to run their own leak detection program.
Byron Lopez is the former Director of Operational Technology at Kilroy, a REIT holding roughly 17 million square feet of Class A property on the West Coast and in Austin. The water program has run for over a decade.
Alongside the sensors sit 116 valve controllers, 123 strategically placed valves, 89 smart base stations, and 386 hubs, spanning 581 floors. One base station can serve an entire campus.
When a sensor trips, the chief engineer and assistant engineer are notified by email, phone, and text simultaneously, and a work order follows. Kilroy tracks the whole chain: when the email went out, when the call was placed, when someone picked up, and when the responder closed it. Average response time is five minutes. Response times used to be far longer and began dropping once accountability rules tightened.
The program has a more surprising benefit for building security. Valves opening at times that buildings should be unoccupied exposed access to the building that wasn't supposed to happen. Leak alerts route to Kilroy's regional security operations center, where staff pulls the nearest camera to check for significance before escalating.
Insurers pay attention as well. Lopez said carriers respond well to documented prevention spend measured against actual water losses, and Kilroy brings that record into rate conversations.
The part most owners underestimate is keeping the fleet alive. Every sensor is wireless and battery-powered, so a dead one is worse than no sensor at all, because the building believes it is covered. Kilroy tracks battery runway per device and puts the sensors on the same preventive maintenance schedule as the equipment they watch.
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Kilroy Realty has nearly 4,000 water sensors in the common areas of 80 of its buildings. That count leaves out tenant space entirely, where thousands more sit under leases requiring tenants to run their own leak detection program.
Byron Lopez is the former Director of Operational Technology at Kilroy, a REIT holding roughly 17 million square feet of Class A property on the West Coast and in Austin. The water program has run for over a decade.
Alongside the sensors sit 116 valve controllers, 123 strategically placed valves, 89 smart base stations, and 386 hubs, spanning 581 floors. One base station can serve an entire campus.
When a sensor trips, the chief engineer and assistant engineer are notified by email, phone, and text simultaneously, and a work order follows. Kilroy tracks the whole chain: when the email went out, when the call was placed, when someone picked up, and when the responder closed it. Average response time is five minutes. Response times used to be far longer and began dropping once accountability rules tightened.
The program has a more surprising benefit for building security. Valves opening at times that buildings should be unoccupied exposed access to the building that wasn't supposed to happen. Leak alerts route to Kilroy's regional security operations center, where staff pulls the nearest camera to check for significance before escalating.
Insurers pay attention as well. Lopez said carriers respond well to documented prevention spend measured against actual water losses, and Kilroy brings that record into rate conversations.
The part most owners underestimate is keeping the fleet alive. Every sensor is wireless and battery-powered, so a dead one is worse than no sensor at all, because the building believes it is covered. Kilroy tracks battery runway per device and puts the sensors on the same preventive maintenance schedule as the equipment they watch.
Register for the next Nexus Labs event.
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This is a great piece!
I agree.