A housing society does not have one water level.
It has a water system.
Water may enter a raw-water tank, move through treatment into filtered or domestic-water storage, get pumped to overhead tanks and finally reach residents. Recycled STP water can follow another storage and distribution path.
If only the final overhead tank is visible, the operating team knows how much water is available at one point. It does not necessarily know what is happening upstream.
Monitoring underground and overhead tanks together changes that.
Instead of asking only “How full is this tank?”, the team can start asking:
Where is the water? How much is available? Is it moving between tanks? At what rate are levels changing? Is the system behaving normally? Where should the maintenance team investigate?
That is the difference between isolated tank monitoring and water-system visibility.
What tanks can be monitored?
TownEve can monitor both underground tanks and overhead tanks using top-mounted, contactless level sensors.
Typical underground tanks may include: Raw-water storage Filtered or domestic-water storage STP or recycled-water storage
Typical overhead tanks may include: Domestic-water tanks Drinking-water tanks STP or recycled-water tanks
The sensing principle is the same across these applications.
The sensor is installed above the water and does not need to remain immersed in the tank.
How contactless tank-level monitoring works
The sensor measures the distance between its mounting position and the water surface.
During setup, the tank dimensions are configured in the TownEve software. The measured distance and configured tank geometry allow the platform to calculate useful storage information including:
Water level Percentage full Estimated water volume in litres
The standard sensor currently used by TownEve supports tank depths up to approximately 4.5 metres. Deeper tanks can be monitored using an appropriate longer-range sensor while retaining the same basic contactless monitoring approach.
This makes the architecture adaptable to different tank dimensions rather than requiring every society to have identical storage infrastructure.
Why monitor the UGT and OHT together?
Consider a simple water path:
Incoming supply → underground storage → transfer pump → overhead tank → residents
If only the overhead tank is monitored, the system can show that the tank is falling.
If the relevant underground tank is also monitored, the operating team gains context.
For example:
UGT healthy + OHT falling Water exists upstream, so the team can investigate the transfer path, pump, power, controls or related infrastructure.
UGT falling + OHT falling The issue may be broader than transfer alone. Incoming supply, overall storage and demand deserve attention.
UGT falling + OHT rising This is consistent with water being transferred upward, allowing the team to observe how the two storage points behave together.
These patterns are diagnostic context, not automatic proof of a particular equipment fault.
TownEve currently derives operational understanding from tank behaviour. Direct pump-state monitoring is in development and should not be confused with the current production monitoring capability. Remote pump operation is also in development and testing, with initial tests already conducted.
Seeing water move through treatment
The same principle becomes useful when water passes through a treatment process.
A simplified path may look like:
Raw-water tank → WTP → filtered/domestic-water tank
When the treatment plant is operating, the raw-water level can decline while the filtered-water storage increases.
Because TownEve retains time-series data across the tanks, the software can analyze these changes together and provide information about how water is moving through the treatment process, including the rate at which storage is changing across the treatment path.
This provides a much richer operating picture than checking either tank in isolation.
It is important to distinguish this analysis from direct instrumentation of every component in the WTP. Tank-level analytics describe the observed movement of water through monitored storage. They do not replace equipment-specific instrumentation where that is required.
From percentage to actual volume
A percentage is useful, but operating teams often need to understand how much water the percentage represents.
Once the tank dimensions are configured, TownEve can show estimated volume in litres alongside level and percentage.
That allows a facility team to view a tank as both a percentage of capacity and an estimated quantity of stored water.
Across several tanks, this can provide a clearer picture of where usable water is distributed throughout the society.
Historical data changes the question
A manual tank check tells you what the level is now.
Historical monitoring tells you how it got there.
TownEve sensors capture tank-level measurements at approximately 30-second intervals. The readings are sent to the backend, logged and made available for historical analysis.
The dashboard can therefore show charts and trends across monitored UGTs and OHTs.
That allows teams to examine questions such as:
When did the tank begin falling? How quickly did it deplete? When did refilling begin? How long did the refill take? Did an underground tank fall while an overhead tank rose? How does today's pattern compare with previous operation? What was the storage position before an incident was noticed?
Historical context is particularly useful because many water-system problems are about change over time rather than one absolute level.
Understanding transfer without directly monitoring the pump
TownEve's current production system does not require direct pump-status integration to observe tank behaviour.
If an underground tank is decreasing while an overhead tank is increasing, the tank data provides evidence of water transfer between the monitored storage points.
If an overhead tank continues falling despite available upstream storage, the data gives the maintenance team a reason to investigate the transfer system.
However, the level data alone should not be described as proof that a specific pump is ON, OFF or tripped.
Direct pump-state monitoring is in development. Remote pump operation and the control layer are in development and testing, with site-specific electrical integration, safeguards, manual override, fail-safe behaviour and commissioning required for production control.
This distinction matters because useful operational visibility does not require pretending that a level sensor observes equipment it does not directly measure.
Alerts turn monitoring into an operating process
Historical analysis is valuable, but a facility team also needs to know when current conditions require attention.
TownEve's production platform supports tank-level alerting, with alerts currently delivered by email.
This helps move tank management away from a purely complaint-driven process.
Instead of waiting for a resident to discover that water has stopped, the responsible team can be alerted to a developing storage condition and investigate.
Email alerts are current production. WhatsApp and additional alert channels are in development and will extend the existing notification framework.
One society, many tanks
Multi-tower residential societies can have a substantial storage network.
There may be underground raw-water storage, filtered-water storage, recycled-water storage and several overhead tanks distributed across towers.
Looking at each tank independently can make this network difficult to understand.
TownEve's society water monitoring architecture is designed to bring those tank readings into one software environment.
At the field level, sensors connect through the site's TownEve communication architecture. Tower-level slave modules communicate over RF with the society-level master module, which aggregates data and sends it to the TownEve backend over the available internet connection.
The result is a common operational view across tanks without requiring every tank to operate as an isolated monitoring system.
What this visibility can help diagnose
Connected UGT and OHT monitoring can provide context for several common operational questions.
Is the society actually short of water? Check upstream storage and its trend.
Is water available but not reaching a tower? Compare the relevant upstream and overhead storage.
Is water being transferred? Look at corresponding level changes across the source and destination tanks.
Is the WTP moving water into filtered storage? Analyze the raw and filtered tank trends together.
Did the problem develop suddenly or gradually? Review historical level data.
Is the condition society-wide or isolated to one tank or tower? Compare the relevant tanks.
The software provides evidence for investigation. Maintenance teams and engineers remain responsible for determining the physical root cause where equipment inspection is required.
What tank monitoring does not automatically tell you
Good water-system monitoring should be explicit about what the data means.
A tank-level sensor measures the water level. It does not directly measure every pipe, valve, pump or treatment component.
Similarly, changes in tank volume should not automatically be presented as precise water consumption.
If water is simultaneously entering and leaving a tank, level change alone does not equal total consumption.
TownEve has tested manually controlled no-inflow observation and valve-isolation methods and continues to refine them. Storage decline can estimate withdrawal when the operating boundary is sufficiently controlled; physical investigation establishes the cause. Direct pump-state monitoring and automated pump or valve operation remain separate development layers. Flow meters remain a future instrumentation layer that can add independent direct flow measurement.
The purpose of connected tank monitoring is to make storage behaviour and movement across the system visible.
Design monitoring around the water journey
The right monitoring design starts with the site's actual water topology.
Map:
Incoming water sources Raw-water storage Treatment stages Filtered or domestic-water storage Transfer pumps Overhead tanks Drinking-water storage STP and recycled-water storage Which tanks serve which towers The normal direction of water movement
Then identify which storage points need monitoring to give the operating team enough context.
The objective is not to install a sensor simply because a tank exists.
The objective is to create useful visibility across the water journey.
From tank monitoring to water intelligence
A tank sensor can answer a simple question: how much water is here?
A connected system can answer more useful operational questions.
Where is the water? How is storage changing? Is water moving between monitored tanks? How quickly is a tank filling or depleting? What happened before the current condition? Which part of the water journey should the team investigate?
That is where tank monitoring becomes water intelligence.
Discuss your tank network
If your society has underground tanks, multiple overhead tanks, treatment storage or recycled-water infrastructure, TownEve can map the water journey and identify the monitoring points needed to provide useful operational visibility.
FAQ
Can TownEve monitor underground water tanks? Yes. TownEve uses top-mounted, contactless sensors for underground as well as overhead tanks. The sensor does not need to be immersed in the water.
Can the same sensor monitor domestic, drinking and STP water tanks? The same contactless sensing approach can be used across these tank types, subject to normal site and installation suitability.
What is the maximum tank depth? The standard sensor currently used supports depths up to approximately 4.5 metres. Deeper tanks can use a suitable longer-range sensor while retaining the same basic monitoring approach.
Can TownEve show litres instead of only percentage? Yes. Once tank dimensions are configured, the software can calculate and display estimated water volume in litres as well as level and percentage.
How frequently are tank levels measured? The current system captures readings at approximately 30-second intervals and logs the data in the backend for historical analysis.
Can monitoring both UGT and OHT show whether water is being transferred? Comparing corresponding tank trends can provide strong operational evidence of transfer behaviour. For example, an underground tank falling while an overhead tank rises is consistent with water moving between them. Tank-level data alone does not directly prove the operating state of a specific pump.
Does TownEve directly monitor pump status? Not in the current production tank-monitoring system described here. Direct pump-state monitoring is in development, while remote pump operation is in development and testing.
Does TownEve provide alerts? Yes. Production alerts are currently delivered by email. Additional alert channels are being developed and tested.