Water Conservation Preserves Water and Homeowner Budgets

Phyn’s smart water system protects homes and residents with insights into water use and leak detection that can save water and money. 

Even the most well-built homes occasionally suffer from a leaky pipe or drippy faucet, particularly after years of use. In fact, about one-quarter of home insurance claims are attributed to water damage, second only to wind and hail damage. New innovations such as the smart water system by Phyn make it much simpler for homeowners to monitor their water usage and find leaks early to protect their home while potentially limiting home insurance claims and bloated water bills.

Green Builder Media and Alair Asheville | Red Tree, a member of Alair Homes, North America’s largest custom home building and renovation franchise, are partnering to build VISION House Asheville, a custom home in the Beaverdam community, to demonstrate the future of homebuilding with climate responsive architecture and innovative products and systems.

VISION House Asheville is designed around three pillars: wellness architecture, resilience and value per square foot™, a metric that provides insights for home buyers and owners about generational sustainability. Value per square foot integrates sustainability, resource efficiency, wellness, comfort, equity and investment into measuring what a home is worth and is a concept generated by trends identified by Green Builder Media’s COGNITION Smart Data™ surveys.

For example, respondents to Green Builder Media’s surveys said that their highest priority when buying or remodeling a home is the lowest long-term cost, followed by the highest comfort and wellbeing.

“VISION House Asheville represents the future of residential construction by demonstrating how thoughtful design, advanced technology and sustainability come together to create healthier, more resilient homes,” says Ryan Kim, founder and CEO of Phyn, an AI-driven intelligent water solutions and leak-detection company. “Those goals closely align with Phyn's commitment to protecting homes, conserving water and delivering meaningful insights that help homeowners make smarter decisions.”

At VISION House Asheville, Phyn will showcase how their water intelligence can integrate into high-performance homes to improve resilience, reduce water waste and protect one of a homeowner's most valuable investments.

“At Phyn, we exist to make water smarter—protecting people, properties and the planet through AI-driven water intelligence that prevents loss and eliminates waste.” Kim says. “Our mission is to help homeowners know more, waste less and protect everything by making water visible, intelligent and actionable.”

Water Conservation and Value Per Square Foot

The seven pillars of value per square foot include energy, resilience, equity and investment, decarbonization, community, health and wellness and water. Phyn’s water intelligence system supports several pillars, including:

• Water: Phyn transforms every drop into actionable insights, helping homeowners understand water use, identify inefficiencies, detect leaks early and reduce unnecessary waste—conserving one of our most valuable resources.
• Resilience: Water damage remains one of the leading causes of homeowner insurance claims. Phyn helps protect homes by detecting leaks early and automatically shutting off the water when necessary, reducing the risk of catastrophic damage and improving long-term home resilience.
• Healthy Home: Hidden leaks can lead to mold, moisture issues and poor indoor air quality. Early detection helps create healthier living environments while giving homeowners greater confidence in the condition of their plumbing systems.
• Investment: Protecting a home's plumbing infrastructure from water damage helps preserve property value, reduce repair costs and avoid unexpected disruptions. Intelligent water management is becoming an increasingly valuable feature in modern, high-performance homes.

VISION House Asheville and Water Intelligence

The products Phyn is demonstrating at VISION House Asheville include:

• Phyn Plus Smart Water Assistant + Shutoff brings AI-driven water intelligence to the home through whole-home leak detection, real-time water monitoring and automatic shutoff. Using advanced pressure sensing and machine learning, Phyn Plus continuously analyzes the home's plumbing system to identify leaks, monitor water use and provide AI-driven actionable insights that help homeowners protect their home, conserve water and save money.
• Phyn Smart Water Sensor complements the system by detecting leaks in high-risk areas such as under sinks, behind appliances and near water heaters. It also helps protect vulnerable locations like drain lines and AC condensers, while monitoring for humidity changes and freezing temperatures that could signal potential water damage.

Smart Homes and Insurance

Phyn partners with multiple homeowner’s insurance companies including Nationwide, AAA, Chubb, Liberty Mutual, Cincinnati Financial, Amica and others, to generate savings on insurance premiums tied to use of Phyn’s water intelligence system.

“More and more insurance companies require homeowners to install leak detectors with automatic shutoff valves to qualify for a policy,” Kim says. “Some insurance companies offer financial incentives such as discounts on premiums or even paying for installation because they’re aware of how much less expensive prevention is compared to remediation.”

Smart leak detection systems such as Phyn’s reduce insurance claims by 70% to 90% because of their early detection and the ability to quickly identify the location of the leak, according to an internal Phyn study across 13,500 homes over a three-year period

“As homes become smarter and more connected, AI-driven water intelligence will become a standard component of residential construction—helping homeowners protect their investment, conserve water and save money,” Kim says.