Lennar Corp. has joined forces with fixture and smart water tech manufacturer Moen to include the Flo by Moen Smart Water Shutoff as a standard feature in all newly built Lennar homes.
The Flo by Moen device, located on the home’s main water line, automatically detects and calculates the home system’s pressure, flow rate and ambient temperature, and provides this information to the homeowner through the Flo by Moen smartphone app. The device can actively monitor the system for leaks or other vulnerabilities; if a leak is detected, the device can either alert the homeowner or automatically turn off the water supply, depending on user preference. Homeowners can also track the home’s water usage fixture by fixture, in order to set conservation goals.
“We’ve come to learn over the years that in excess of 70% of insurance claims are water related,” said Eric Feder, managing general partner of Lennar’s LENx group, in an interview with BUILDER. “And historically, leak detection devices have been extremely expensive, and they’ve all been hard-wired, so they were not IoT devices. Over the last year and a half, two years, we’ve been on a mission to find best of breed in this space that we could include in our homes as part of our Everything’s Included package. … [Moen is] already a part of our supply chain, and the brand backing, the gravitas that they bring to the table, is very appealing. It’s elegant, it’s really easy to install, and the user interface is extremely friendly.”
According to a recent Lexis Nexis study, homes with a newly installed Flo by Moen Smart Water Shutoff saw a 96% decrease in paid water leak insurance claims in the year following installation, compared with the two years prior.
“Forty percent of homeowners will suffer from some type of water damage,” says Gabriel Halimi, CEO of Flo Technologies. “Forty percent. By including Flo by Moen in their builds, Lennar is leveraging our proprietary machine learning technology to help protect their customers’ home water supply and allow them to enjoy all the many benefits of a smart water system, including an improved ability to monitor, control, and conserve their home’s water at their fingertips.”
As of now the product’s pilot program is complete, with standardization in progress across the Lennar portfolio and full rollout expected in 2021. “We’re hopeful that this is the first iteration of many products that Flo will offer,” Feder says. “We’re here to continue the journey with Flo and with Moen to invent or create these IoT devices that are going to enhance the customer experience for our homeowners.”