Carol Ott: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about problems that have been solved in New York co-op and condo buildings. My guest today is Akaash Kancharla, CEO of aRobotics Company. Your company has a unique product that can help pinpoint one of the most common problems in multifamily buildings, and that's leaks. And not just water leaks, but air leakage. Can you describe the product and how it works?
Akaash Kancharla: Yes. We use a system of two robotic machines in tandem, which basically scan roofs and building exteriors using thermal imaging arrays as well as ultrasound and radar so that we can see where water is lingering or getting in. We can see these cool spots. We can see insulation leaks as well, so we can direct where the repairs need to happen.
Carol Ott: Let's say I have a building and you are going to scan it. Are you setting up equipment? Do I have to have scaffolds? How does that work?
Akaash Kancharla: Our equipment is unique in that it's extremely lightweight relative to any sort of traditional method which would apply thermography or radar based study. This equipment weighs in at under 50 pounds. We use very lightweight rigging that's extremely temporary. It takes less than 20 minutes to set up and it takes less than one day for us to get the permits that are required to use this in New York City.
Carol Ott: And if you scan my facade, what does your report tell you? What would it tell me?
Akaash Kancharla: The report is really to your preference. Most people like to keep things simple, so we just tell them, this is where the leak is, this is how you fix it.
Carol Ott: One of the biggest problems with leaks are roof leaks. How does that work on a roof?
Akaash Kancharla: For roofs, we have stationary platforms, which we basically aim such that we are scanning the entire roof for multiple days at a time. This lets us collect a lot more data at a fraction of the cost. So these scans do identify on the roof where exactly the ingress point is for the water.
Carol Ott: And how does your device differ from your competitors who do leak detection?
Akaash Kancharla: No one has the sort of remote monitoring platforms that we deploy. We have the patent for at least 10 years, but also the algorithmic combination of proprietary code and expertise lets us comb through basically mountains of data. We need specialized computers to do this, and the human expertise in tandem gives a lot more accuracy than anyone else in industry right now.
Carol Ott: So how much does this cost?
Akaash Kancharla: For the most typical leaks, we're running at around $5,000 to $10,000 for a job where we're deploying units for a couple weeks and going through the results. For extremely complicated leaks where we're involving multiple points of ingress, sometimes the bill has gone as high as $50,000 for certain jobs. But pretty much across the board you're looking at a solid 40 to 55% of savings relative to what other human-intensive operators would require.
Carol Ott: Does this equipment work if there are interior leaks within a multi-family building? If I, in my apartment building, have leaks within the risers that are within walls, could your equipment track down where the leak would be coming from and if so, how would it do that?
Akaash Kancharla: Because we are collecting vast quantities of data, we are about 89% of the time able to visualize that trace as it enters the building. By rewinding our data capture and running it through some algorithms, we can actually trace that back to its source, even if it's behind other materials.
Carol Ott: You had told me about a leak in a lobby that you used your equipment for. How did that work?
Akaash Kancharla: This was a very complicated interior. A lot of expense went into the interior. So they weren't in a position to just rip out the walls or even do any kind of destructive study. We deployed these remote monitors to cover that entire lobby, and it's a high-end hotel, so these units are extremely small and non-intrusive. They don't make any noise. So no one really noticed, honestly. We left them there for about a month, and over the course of that month, we were starting to visualize the traces of water. And it turned out to be fairly simple; I think the repair bill ended up being a few hundred bucks. They just needed to caulk a specific seam that the contractor forgot about when it went up.
Carol Ott: All right. Thank you very much. This sounds like a very interesting product and hopefully will be very useful in New York. Thanks for speaking with us today.
Akaash Kancharla: Thank you for your time.