I'm on my own own water well system. Four inch well with a 1.5hp submersible pump. that provides water for my home and my lawn irrigation system. The well, a 120 gallon galvanized water tank, water softener for home, and master control valve for irrigation system are located in an 8'X14' "well house". There is a "T" on the downstream outlet from the tank, with one side going to the softener then to my home, and the other side going to my master control valve then out to the yard valves/zones. I plan on adding a pressure regulator downstream from the water softener, and a backflow preventer between the "T" and the master control valve soon. Also on the home line between the softener and the regulator, I'm installing a flow switch that opens (or closes) a dry contact when a certain flow rate has been exceeded. It can be set to open/close at any flow between one and 20 gallons per minute. All of these will be in the well house. I'm also installing a device called a "cycle sensor" in the well pump circuit between the circuit breaker and the pressure switch that protects the pump from dry well situations and rapid cycle situations by shutting down power to the pump if either of those happen. My well house is 150' from my home. I have a "shop" that is about 10' from my home, and that is where my utility company power comes in then goes underground to my home. My standby generator is next to my shop, and the ATS for it is in the shop.
I had planned on adding some additional safeguards with some regular relays, switches, sensors, etc., but the HA bug has bitten me. I'm now looking at the same safeguards with a view towards HA, specifically Elk and CQC.
I will have leak sensors located in various places in my home and in the well house. The ones in the home will probably be the GE wireless sensors. The ones in the well house will be the GRI wired sensors. I will have a zone expansion board and output expansion board located in my shop, and I have room in conduits going between the shop and well house that I can use. My wired LAN also reaches out to my shop. My plan was to have the cycle sensor device first on the water well pump circuit. After the cycle sensor, I would have a DPST relay that would be used to control the power to the pump via Elk and/or CQC. Is there any reason to use the Elk heavy duty relay instead of a off-the-shelf relay since I will have the zone and output expansions boards nearby, assuming that the Elk output is enough to energize the relay coil and the relay contactors can handle the pump? I would also have two DPDT manual bypass switches (one to bypass the cycle sensor, one to bypass the relay) in case one or both devices causes problems. I'm also thinking about adding a water meter with a pulse output to track water usage. I will probably install something like the Elk water shutoff valve near the new pressure regulator so I can shut off the pump and water to the home (remaining water in the tank) if a problem occurs. The only other thing I can think of to add is a pressure sensor/switch that can be used to shut off the pump if a certain pressure is reached. A manual reset would be required, since it would indicate a potential problem.
I already use dataloggers to log start/stop for the water well pump, water softener regeneration start/stop, and irrigation system start/stop. They can be read over the LAN, so I plan on writing some programs to analyze the logger data and feed some of the results to CQC, for example, the softener is probably low on salt, etc.
So, are there any problems or areas of concern in this plan (other than costing a lot)? Anything I'm leaving out? Any other comments.
Thanks,
Ira
I had planned on adding some additional safeguards with some regular relays, switches, sensors, etc., but the HA bug has bitten me. I'm now looking at the same safeguards with a view towards HA, specifically Elk and CQC.
I will have leak sensors located in various places in my home and in the well house. The ones in the home will probably be the GE wireless sensors. The ones in the well house will be the GRI wired sensors. I will have a zone expansion board and output expansion board located in my shop, and I have room in conduits going between the shop and well house that I can use. My wired LAN also reaches out to my shop. My plan was to have the cycle sensor device first on the water well pump circuit. After the cycle sensor, I would have a DPST relay that would be used to control the power to the pump via Elk and/or CQC. Is there any reason to use the Elk heavy duty relay instead of a off-the-shelf relay since I will have the zone and output expansions boards nearby, assuming that the Elk output is enough to energize the relay coil and the relay contactors can handle the pump? I would also have two DPDT manual bypass switches (one to bypass the cycle sensor, one to bypass the relay) in case one or both devices causes problems. I'm also thinking about adding a water meter with a pulse output to track water usage. I will probably install something like the Elk water shutoff valve near the new pressure regulator so I can shut off the pump and water to the home (remaining water in the tank) if a problem occurs. The only other thing I can think of to add is a pressure sensor/switch that can be used to shut off the pump if a certain pressure is reached. A manual reset would be required, since it would indicate a potential problem.
I already use dataloggers to log start/stop for the water well pump, water softener regeneration start/stop, and irrigation system start/stop. They can be read over the LAN, so I plan on writing some programs to analyze the logger data and feed some of the results to CQC, for example, the softener is probably low on salt, etc.
So, are there any problems or areas of concern in this plan (other than costing a lot)? Anything I'm leaving out? Any other comments.
Thanks,
Ira