Simplifying Water Management at Remote Subdivision

Silvertip Springs Homeowners Association

Silvertip Springs Homeowners Association is located in the historic community of La Porte, CA. A former gold mining town, La Porte today attracts numerous visitors and seasonal residents to its superior lakeside campsites, fishing holes, hiking trails, and swimming areas.

Applications: Water Management

Market: Drinking Water

Challenge
The HOA has been providing reliable utility services to visitors and residents in the remote mountainous getaway, which includes supplying superior quality water from the mountain range. Checking the water level supply proved to be challenging for the HOA. Members would frequently drive snowmobiles up the mountainside to visually check the inventory of the water. This was particularly concerning during harsh weather conditions in the mountain range. Additionally, in the off-season, it was difficult to manage leakage in the 60,000-gallon water tank such that the inventory remained constant when no one was onsite.

“Checking the water supply for our community involved driving a snowmobile up the mountain so we could get a visual check of the level.” said Dan, President

Key concerns are minimizing irrelevant HOA tasks, increasing water management efficiencies, and maintaining a consistent and reliable supply of drinking water for the seasonal residents and visitors.

Solution
In 2023, Silvertip Springs HOA installed the TankScan TSP1000 tank monitoring system on their 60,000-gallon water tank in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The remote monitoring system leverages existing wireless cellular infrastructure and a cloud software application to eliminate large startup and setup costs associated with typical SCADA systems. The install requires screwing the monitor into a 2” port on the top of the tank and plugging in the battery. The cloud application is set up remotely and offers unlimited users, historical trending, and email/text notifications. The tank levels are viewed from a field operator’s cell phone or from a PC at a remote office. The system is cost-effective due to its use of existing infrastructures through internet connectivity, internet browser, email, text message, and cloud computing. The user is provided with accurate readings to devices he already owns, understands, and supports.

Results
Silvertip Springs HOA has seen numerous benefits from remote level monitoring including:
• Overhead and labor costs reduced by eliminating unnecessary trips to the tank
• Community operations improved with remote tank level visibility
• Automated notifications reduce the risk of water leakage from the 60,000-gallon tank
• Removing snowmobile trips up the mountain, safety issues are decreased

“TankScan has saved us a lot of work and has alerted us to leaks in the system. We have also improved our water pumping efficiency by 60%”, said Dan.

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