Water leak detection in Boston for commercial and multifamily buildings

Managed leak detection, 24/7 monitoring and automatic shutoff for campuses, condos and commercial buildings across Greater Boston.

Boston skyline
150,000+
active smart devices in the field
$2.26M
in water costs saved in 2025
24/7
monitoring center

Why Boston buildings carry water risk

Boston is a city of old, stacked buildings. Nearly half of its housing was built before 1940, and nearly a quarter of its homes are in buildings of three or four units, many of them triple-deckers built between 1880 and 1930. From the 1980s on, many became condos, concentrated in Charlestown, Jamaica Plain, South Boston and the South End. In a stacked building, a failed fitting upstairs runs into every unit below.

The newer Boston carries different risk. About one home in nine was built since 2010, and Greater Boston's lab space roughly doubled in five years to 48.4 million square feet. Much of that lab space now sits empty. New buildings in the Seaport, Fenway and Allston opened with few or no lab tenants. Empty floors still have live water lines, and campus labs and hospital floors hold research and equipment a leak can ruin.

Logan Airport averages about 92 nights a year at or below freezing but only about 23 days that stay frozen, so pipes freeze and thaw all winter. In February 2023 it hit 10 below zero, and burst pipes and sprinkler lines forced hospitals to divert ambulances and flooded part of a mall. Eddy's 24/7 monitoring center confirms every alert, calls the building's contacts through the escalation protocol within minutes of the SMS, email and app alerts and can close a valve remotely when the response plan calls for it.

Where leaks start in Boston buildings

Century-old triple-deckers and conversions

Nearly a quarter of Boston's homes are in three- and four-unit buildings, many of them triple-deckers built between 1880 and 1930. Two- and three-family houses led the city's condo conversions in the late 1990s. In a stacked building a failed fitting upstairs soaks every unit below it.

Freeze-thaw swings and deep cold snaps

Logan Airport averages about 92 nights a year at or below freezing but only about 23 days that stay frozen. Pipes freeze and thaw all winter. Then the deep snaps hit: in February 2023, burst pipes and sprinkler lines damaged hospitals, a theater and a mall.

Labs, campuses and hospital floors

Greater Boston's lab space roughly doubled in five years to 48.4 million square feet. Lab benches, research freezers, records rooms and hospital floors hold contents a leak can ruin. That is where monitoring and automatic shutoff matter most.

New buildings sitting empty

Much of Greater Boston's new lab space sits empty. New buildings in the Seaport, Fenway and Allston opened with few or no lab tenants. An empty floor still has live water lines, and nobody is there to see a leak.

Smart leak detection in Boston

A smart water leak detection system pairs wireless sensors and smart meters with automatic shutoff, so a Boston building catches a leak in seconds instead of discovering it from a ceiling stain. Eddy runs the full stack as one managed program with a staffed 24/7 monitoring center on the chain.

Sensors plus flow intelligence

3-in-1 wireless sensors watch high-risk spaces for water, temperature and humidity while smart meters flag abnormal flow against thresholds learned from the building's own baseline.

No building Wi-Fi needed

Devices run on Eddy's own LoRaWAN network at 915 MHz, a long-range radio that holds a signal through concrete. Gateways backhaul over Ethernet or LTE cellular, and with cellular backhaul monitoring stays up even if building internet goes down.

Shutoff plus a live response

Automatic valves close the moment a configured rule fires, and Eddy's monitoring center calls the building's contacts within minutes of every alert. Every confirmed event closes with a Leak Incident Report.

See how the Eddy system works, from sensor placement to the monitoring center.

Coverage map

How Eddy works in a Boston building.

Long New England winters put Boston's supply lines in exterior walls and unheated spaces at risk, and labs, libraries and hospital floors hold contents a leak can ruin. Turn the building to see where sensors, meters and valves sit, then run a leak through the system, from the first drop to the monitoring center's response.

Cutaway model of an occupied mid-rise showing Eddy sensors in the suites and risers, meters and shutoff valves in the basement mechanical room, and the rooftop gateway linked through Eddy's cloud to the 24/7 monitoring centerCutaway model of an occupied mid-rise showing Eddy sensors in the suites and risers, meters and shutoff valves in the basement mechanical room, and the rooftop gateway linked through Eddy's cloud to the 24/7 monitoring center

Occupied building · Business hours

Drag to turn the building. Select a label, or run a leak through the system.

Interactive 3D section of an occupied mid-rise, from the domestic main in the basement to the suites, risers and rooftop mechanical. It shows where Eddy places its sensors, smart meters, shutoff valves and LoRaWAN gateway, and how alerts travel through Eddy's cloud to the 24/7 monitoring center.

The system

Detect, control and respond, in one managed program.

Sensors sit where leaks start and meters watch the flow. Valves close on the rules you set, and a 24/7 monitoring center follows each alert until your team has eyes on it.

3 layers and 16 close-ups in this building

Detect

Two ways to find a leak before it finds a unit.

Sensors sit where leaks start, and meters watch the flow for the leaks no sensor can reach.

8 close-ups · select one to zoom in

Point-of-leak

Flow-based

Control

Valves that close the water before it closes the unit.

Valves close on the rules you set, automatically on a threshold or remotely from the dashboard.

4 close-ups · select one to zoom in

Respond

A live monitoring center that closes the loop.

Alerts go through Eddy's cloud to a 24/7 monitoring center, and an operator calls your team until someone has eyes on the water.

4 close-ups · select one to zoom in

What happens in a leak, step by step
  1. A washing machine supply hose bursts in a suite upstairs.
  2. Eddy H2O under the washer detects water and sends the alert over LoRaWAN.
  3. The building's gateway relays it. Your team and the 24/7 monitoring center are alerted at the same time.
  4. A shutoff rule closes the suite's Eddy IQ valve. The water stops at the source.
  5. An operator confirms the alert and calls your on-site team through the escalation protocol.

Automatic shutoff is configured per building. Some sites use operator-coordinated isolation instead.

Smart sensors at every leak point

Eddy places point-of-leak sensors and smart flow meters where water damage actually starts in Boston buildings, from the mechanical room to a laundry hose, so a leak is caught at the source and shut off before it spreads.

Eddy smart leak detection in a building mechanical rooms setting

Mechanical rooms

Boilers, water heaters and main risers, where a single failure floods fast.

Eddy smart leak detection in a building hvac and fan coils setting

HVAC and fan coils

Heat exchangers and condensate lines that drip behind walls and ceilings.

Eddy smart leak detection in a building kitchens setting

Kitchens

Supply lines, shutoffs and appliance connections under and behind the sink.

Eddy smart leak detection in a building bathrooms setting

Bathrooms

Toilets, vanities and concealed in-wall fixtures on every floor.

Eddy smart leak detection in a building laundry setting

Laundry

Washer hoses and laundry connections, a top source of overnight leaks.

Detect fast, act fast

Every minute changes the bill.

A leak gets bigger the longer it runs. Eddy detects in seconds and the monitoring center escalates within minutes, so the same failure is contained around minute two. Unmonitored, an after-hours leak runs six to eight hours before anyone arrives.

One leak, two outcomesMinutes since the leak started
0 minmin elapsed
Eddy containedUnmonitored
Eddy isolatingminute 2
Without monitoringrunning · 0 min
min 101 hr2 hr4 hr6 hr8 hr

The leak starts at minute zero. Eddy contains it around minute two. Unmonitored, the same leak runs six to eight hours before staff arrive, and that red stretch is the avoided claim.

Build your system

Design your building's leak protection.

Two minutes of quick questions gets your building the right protection, previewed instantly.

  • Sized to your asset class and budget
  • Modular. Adjust anything before pricing
  • An Eddy team member calls soon after you submit

Sensors, meters and shutoff, backed by a 24/7 monitoring center.

BERDO puts water use on the record

Boston's Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance covers residential buildings with 15 or more units and non-residential buildings of 20,000 square feet or more. Owners must report the previous year's total energy and water use by May 15, with third-party verification in the first reporting year and every five years after, and emissions standards apply from 2025 or 2030 depending on size. A leak that runs for weeks ends up in that water number. Documented flow monitoring helps an owner catch abnormal use early and explain it when the report is filed.

A team behind every alert

A 3 a.m. alert is one chime. Nobody is awake to hear it.

Fast response is not just the hardware. The technology sees the water in seconds, and the managed service behind it, a monitoring center that calls your team within minutes, turns that into a contained event before it becomes a claim.

Tuned by real events

Built over a decade in operating buildings.

Eddy has been inside buildings since 2014. Sensor placement, alert thresholds and the monitoring-center playbook are tuned by what real water events across our monitored properties keep teaching us.

Built for the building

Sized to how the water system behaves.

Multi-family stacks, commercial towers, hospitality suites, course-of-construction projects. Each water system has its own failure pattern. The coverage map, response chain and shutoff sequence are scoped to the property in front of us, not a template.

Detect, contain, document

Every event leads to a closed incident.

Sensors find where water escaped. Automatic shutoff isolates the affected zone. The 24/7 monitoring center calls your team within minutes and stays on it until it's closed, with a Leak Incident Report on file.

Trusted on campuses and institutional buildings

Eddy protects institutional and campus buildings where downtime and lost contents are not an option, with escalation and shutoff handled around the clock by the monitoring center.

Solutions for every building

Eddy protects every asset type the same way, with monitoring and shutoff tuned to how each building's water system behaves.

  • Multifamily and condos

    Protect every suite and riser across high-rise and mid-rise residential.

  • Commercial

    Keep Class A offices and mixed-use towers dry, floor by floor.

  • Construction

    Cover active sites where water damage is a leading cause of loss.

  • Hospitality

    Guard guest floors and back-of-house without disrupting the stay.

  • Institutional

    Safeguard campuses, hospitals and labs where contents are irreplaceable.

  • Industrial

    Watch process water and facility systems around the clock.

Boston water leak detection FAQ

  • Do you serve Greater Boston?

    Yes. Eddy protects campus, institutional, commercial and multifamily buildings across Boston and the surrounding metro, including Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton, Quincy and Waltham.

  • Can Eddy protect a lab or hospital floor?

    Yes. Eddy is well suited to high-value institutional space, where it watches flow and the presence of water around benches, equipment and mechanical rooms. Water can shut off automatically or on a remote command, and every event is documented.

  • How does Eddy handle a freeze-night burst?

    Operators in the monitoring center confirm the alert and call the building's contacts through the escalation protocol within minutes of the SMS, email and app alerts. Water can shut off automatically or on a remote command, any hour of the night.

  • Can Eddy protect a triple-decker or small condo association?

    Yes. In a stacked three-unit building every unit sits over another, so one failed supply line can reach every owner and the association's master policy. Wireless sensors install with no drywall cuts, and the same monitoring center covers a three-unit association and a 300-unit tower.

  • Does Eddy help with BERDO water reporting?

    BERDO asks covered buildings for their total water use each year. Flow monitoring flags abnormal flow as it happens and documents each event, so a hidden leak does not run for months and inflate the number you report.

How Eddy works

  • What is Eddy Solutions?

    Eddy Solutions is managed water leak detection for builders, commercial asset managers and property managers, hospitals, hotels and conference centers, data centers and multifamily residential buildings across Greater Boston. It combines point-of-leak and flow sensors, automatic shutoff, building wireless connectivity, a 24/7 monitoring center and insurance-grade reporting into one program from one vendor, so a leak is detected, contained, escalated and documented without your team running the response.

    Eddy monitors 150,000+ active devices across North America and has prevented an estimated $98M (USD) in property damage last year alone. Aon's independent study found Eddy would have positively affected 58% of water-loss claims in commercial real estate.

  • How do we choose a commercial water leak detection company in Greater Boston?

    Look for five things. Sensors where leaks start, not only a meter on the main. Shutoff valves that close on their own when water runs. A staffed monitoring center that calls your team instead of only sending an app alert. Wireless coverage that holds a signal through concrete to mechanical rooms and parking levels. And a documented record of every event that your insurer can read.

    Eddy covers all five for buildings across Greater Boston, from a single tower to a full portfolio, with 150,000+ active devices in the field.

  • What happens after hours?

    The 24/7 monitoring center is the after-hours response. Trained operators confirm every alert, escalate per the building's contact list, support the on-call contact, and stay on the line until the water is off and the response is verified.

  • Will this affect our insurance?

    Yes. Eddy Solutions' technology is approved by most insurers across North America to provide deductible or premium savings. Given differences in asset types and building risk profiles, insurance incentives are not uniform. For specific insurance questions related to your property in Greater Boston, please reach out directly to sghanbarian@eddysolutions.com.

  • How is the system sized for a building, and what does it cost?

    Eddy's team walks the building, or reviews the construction drawings, and produces a tiered design matched to the asset class, water systems and insurance program. Our first step is an exploratory call with the relevant stakeholders to understand the problem you are looking to solve. Proposals come from our technical team in 7 days or less.

    You can also get started immediately with our Build Your System tool at eddysolutions.com/build-your-system.

  • Do we have to open walls to install Eddy?

    No. Sensor installs need no drywall cuts. Wireless sensors sit where leaks start, at fixtures, appliances, fan coils and the foot of each riser, and Eddy provisions and configures the meters and valves on the lines that need them.

  • What is smart water leak detection?

    Smart water leak detection uses connected sensors and flow meters to watch a building's plumbing in real time, instead of waiting for someone to find a leak. Point-of-leak sensors catch water at the source and smart flow meters spot an abnormal run or a burst riser, and the system can shut the water off automatically or on a remote command. With Eddy, a 24/7 monitoring center acts on every alert, so detection turns into a response, not just a notification.

  • How is commercial water leak detection different from a home leak detector?

    A home leak detector is usually a single sensor that pings an app. Commercial and multifamily leak detection has to cover dozens of risers, suites and mechanical rooms, hold a signal through concrete and steel and produce the documented response insurers expect. Eddy is built for that scale, with building-grade LoRaWAN wireless, point-of-leak and flow coverage across the property, automatic shutoff up to building mains and a managed 24/7 monitoring center.

  • What is the difference between leak detection and water leak protection?

    Leak detection finds the water. Water leak protection stops the loss. Detection on its own is an alert that still needs someone to act on it. Eddy pairs detection with automatic shutoff and a 24/7 monitoring center that escalates the alert and closes the water, so the building is protected, not just alerted.

  • Does Eddy work for both multifamily and commercial buildings?

    Yes. Eddy protects multifamily and condo towers, Class A offices and mixed-use buildings, hospitality, institutional and industrial properties and active construction sites. The same managed program tunes the sensor density, shutoff strategy and reporting to how each building's water system behaves. See the full product suite at eddysolutions.com/products.

Get your property protected.

Peace of mind, on every floor: our specialists map your building's risk points and design coverage backed by a 24/7 monitoring center.

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