Clare company Enspired by rainfall

THE directors of Scariff-based rain harvesting company, Enspire are confident their method of water provision for commercial and domestic premises will soon be accorded a worldwide patent.

The company won the Clare Innovation in Business award at the Clare Business Excellence Awards, which were held recently in Ennis.
Enspire are predicting their current workforce of two full-time and two contract staff will have increased to nine employees within 12 months.
The directors point out their method of harvesting rainwater involves no digging up of footpaths or gardens.
“We realised that if somebody wanted to collect rainwater in their house, the only way they could do it was to dig up their footpaths or gardens and put in a huge tank in the ground in order to catch the rain water,” Denis Sheehy explained.
“What we have come with and have been designing for the last while is a unit that essentially catches rainwater at the top of the down pipe. Because it’s solar powered, the unit can distribute water to anywhere in or around the house. There’s no digging up of footpaths or gardens or driveways.
“We can use the existing tank in the attic or people can put an additional tank in the attic if they want to catch or store more water,” Mr Sheehy, who invented and designed the Enspire product, added.
“Each system in itself is essentially a computer. It has water temperature monitoring systems in it and it has the ability to contact your mobile or laptop.
“It will monitor how much water you have pumped and it will notify you if the temperature drops below two degrees. We have anti-freezing measures in it, which means the pipe work, from the units to your tank, will never freeze over,” he added.
The company was set up earlier this year but the product has been at design stage for more than two years.
“We designed it, developed it and we’re building it in Clare. We’re going to create a manufacturing facility in Clare and create sustainable Clare jobs. When we do get as far as exporting, the business is still going to be based here in Clare,” Mr Sheehy stated.
“It’s an innovative, patented product and there is no other product on the market similar to it. We are currently pursuing a worldwide patent as well. We feel our timing is spot on. If this was put on the market 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have worked,” John Dillane, who is also a company director, asserted.
The company is currently in talks with what they describe as “a significant sports stadium,” who are looking at installing a water harvesting system.
“A new patent product is being developed specifically for that customer’s demand. We’re hoping that if this customer comes on board, we could go international with the stadium product,” Mr Dillane stated.
Although currently concentrating on the commercial market, Enspire is targeting the 1.8 million domestic houses in Ireland and the 25 million privately owned houses in Britain.
“It is something that will definitely take off when charging for water for domestic dwellings is introduced,” Martin Davoren, Enspire’s regional sales manager forecast.
“Outside of charging, rainwater is a soft water, so it’s better for washing machines and dryers. There’s no corrosion and there’s no chemicals involved in it compared to mains water. A lot of people wouldn’t be aware of what rainwater harvesting is. When you explain to people what it consists of, they are often gob-smacked. When you mention rainwater harvesting, people think that they have to dig up their lawns,” he added.
At the end of August, Enspire installed their water harvesting system at Scariff Community College.
“In three to four days we had given them a system where within a couple of weeks they had used 60,000 litres of water,” Mr Davoren noted.
Johnny Flynn, another company director, believes the company is exploiting Ireland’s plentiful supply of rain.
“We see this as a very large opportunity for Clare to became a world leader in the manufacturing and sale of this product. Everybody needs water and we have world-class rain. We’re famous for it,” he observed.
“Over the last two winters, a lot of people in their homes and businesses suffered a huge loss of water supply because of a freezing of their own system and also because of problems with the public mains getting to them. So there’s a huge security of supply issue as regards water and obviously cost.
“Some of our commercial customers are spending up to €90,000 per year on water. If they can save a third or half of that cost, they’re telling us that they can create an extra job or two. So what we’re doing is we’re trying to create Clare-based jobs in the manufacturing, installation and sale of this product to commercial users first,” Mr Flynn concluded.