What I learned after adopting Sedal’s technology in Digital Water Management
This article has been wrote by Joan Porquer, Marketing & Sales Director at Sedal Group, talking about his direct experience using during months one of our Electronic Mixing Water System in his house with his family.
Sedal has designed and manufactured mechanical valves for almost four decades now. The knowledge and expertise are well consolidated, but the willingness to continue innovating makes our engineers and marketing teams to look further into the future, trying to foresee how household and industrial water usage will look like the following years.
It is already obvious that the management of water is one of the key points for the sustainable development of communities, especially since the climate change is more noticeable than ever before. According to the United Nations, 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress. UN’s Sustainable Goal 6: “Ensure everyone has access to water and sanitation by 2030” looks far from being achievable according to the Secretary-General of United Nations António Guterres: “While advances are being made, current progress needs to quadruple to achieve universal access”. In this regard, he made a clear demand to all the stakeholders: “Let us commit to intensifying efforts to truly valuing water so all may have equitable access to this most precious resource”.
“In the last 10 years, water saving technologies have been included into most of the products that we sell”
While it is true that Sedal is just a small player to this titanic task that humanity is facing, it is also true that we are a leading company known by most of the faucet manufacturers globally, being in a unique position to try to influence them to take steps (maybe small, but firm steps) towards this direction. In the last 10 years, water saving technologies have been included into most of the products that we sell and our customers bring to the marketplace. But I believe this is still not enough.
While everything we had to offer were mechanical devices, we knew that there should be another way to make water and energy use more efficient. And we looked at what other industries had done in the past to become efficient. Automobile, aviation, communications, manufacturing… all these industries, and many others, had undergone a deep conversion from mechanical-only to electronically managed systems. I will not dive into the reasons to make this change, but it all can be summarized in one word: efficiency. The question was obvious: can we also use electronics to improve the user experience and meet the sustainability goals?
“I made my home an example of what Digital Water Management Systems can do for the environment”
The answer to that question might look easy now looking at what we have done for the last five years at Sedal. We have developed an array of digital solutions for our customers to build smart and advanced faucets that save water and energy while improving the way the consumer relates to everyday water use. Overseeing the Sales and Marketing department of a Company that innovates and creates new standards has put me in a perfect position to challenge the technology. And this is exactly what I did. I made my home an example of what Digital Water Management Systems can do for the environment. This is the story of what has changed in my family.
Last year we all struggled through an unprecedented situation that still today has enormous impact on the day-to-day life of billions of people. During the most restrictive part of the pandemic, we decided to make some renovations at home, 2 bathrooms and the kitchen. When facing one of the most interesting topics (the fittings) I knew it was a great opportunity to deeply learn how the products we sell can really do something meaningful for my family and my planet. We went for it and installed 7 connected digital faucets and showers made with Sedal’s technology.
Showering systems are highly demanding in water flow, being one of the places where most water is wasted. So there is where we focused since the beginning, where iSCU valves were used to build the shower area. The entire family was excited to see the new controls and what we all could do with them, especially using the APP to perform automated tasks, like automatic warm up. The experience in the wet area is very different now: digital controls, visual information of flow and temperature, great stability and very silent. The feeling of a shower with such a level of control is exceptional, and makes you realize of what you, as a user, like and dislike making it visible: now I know I like a shower at exactly 5 liters per minute and 39ºC in winter, 34ºC in summer.
“All these were the obvious advantages, but something more meaningful was undergoing: awareness”
All members of the family have our own user profile, making it easy for each of us to select ours and shower at our preferred settings with no interference to other users. Simple. It is possible to set it in the keypad during the shower or through the APP. All these were the obvious advantages, but something more meaningful was undergoing: awareness. Being able to read actual data of the way we used the water gave us an extra sense of understanding. Eric Hoffer, American philosopher and writer, is the author of a quote I love and practice as much as I can: “To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.” Being aware is the first step to change, and yes, we definitely were aware!
“To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.”
We were shocked when we realized that each of us in the family were using from 120 to 200 liters of water, per shower! Of course, you pay the bill each month for the water used, but you never know if the washing machine, or watering the garden, or the daily shower were to be blamed. Well, we know now. This came with a great expenditure of energy too, also monitored in the APP from Sedal. A single shower could use 2,4 to 3,3 KWh of energy. It was clearly unsustainable. We heeded Mr. Hoffer and made the most of the information we got to become better.
“The figures of water use and energy spent started dropping instantly”
We started a game at home: see who a shower can have using the least amount of water. I started monitoring all the showers from the family weekly and monthly. In the process I learned I could cleanse at a stunningly low flow rate of 4 liters per minute! The overhead extra-wide rain fitting helped with that feeling because it delivers water as if actually it were raining, very gentle but enough. The figures of water used and energy spent started dropping instantly. Each of us run to see the figures in the APP to track the saving, it became usual to look at that data. We even shared information of what we were doing in order to even lower the consumption. It became clear that awareness gave us the opportunity to act upon and it was fun!
9×7 meters swimming pool 2 meters deep
After 8 months with the showers installed, I can state that we saved somewhat from 11 to 13 cubic meters of water monthly, which makes more than 130 cubic meters per year. This is a 9×7 meters swimming pool 2 meters deep of water saved. And as much as 2.423 KWh per year. One single home!
People ask me if I am happy with the change, if it is worth it. Now I know this is exactly what we wanted at home, just we didn’t know until we had it. We have managed to save a lot of water and energy, we have more fun, better control and fashionable fittings, and we humbly contribute to make the planet a little bit greener and bluer. So yes, it is worth it.
If you would like to have more information about our cartridges or electronic mixing water systems and talk with our Sales or Technical Department, do not hesitate to contact us at sales@sedal.com. Our team is always happy to help you.
