I think you are on the right track here.
Here is a picture of what happened to me when my HVAC guys didn't properly connect the condensate pipe to an air handler. The roof caved in in a guest bedroom.
I have now installed water sensors (GRI) near all air handlers, and in the basement utility room. Any water detection immediately shuts off the air handlers in the affected area, and sends me an alert.
In this picture a lot of priceless stuff was destroyed. Hand made martial art uniforms made by monks - things that could not be cleaned, or even dry-cleaned!
Really aggravating. Learn from my fail.
Oh, and downstairs, a toilet actually cracked in half last month. There was an inch of water in the den downstairs when I went to feed the Doberman. Water got into the walls and caused all sorts of damage, and mold. Really, install water sensors.
There has been one other water leak in the den in the past 5 years, I don't remember the reason, but that's a total of 3 water disasters in the last 8 years.
It's a good thing I had the foresight to run 3 10-pair extra cables to all parts of the house...
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The 2600 is a normally closed circuit. So you would not run mutliple sensors in parrallel but rather in series (assuming you want to merge them onto a single alarm panel zone (or other similar dectector). In that way if any one of multiple sensors got wet, it would open the circuit. They also have a simpler model which is a normally open configuration. . .it wires in parallel.Thanks. I called GRI about their WSV; it's a nylon valve. It's not much cheaper than the Elk, so I'm going to buy the Elk, and for now just set it up to shut off my water and alert the alarm panel (hopefully Alarm Relay will support a water sensor alarm). If at some point I buy an M1, I'll have the M1 shut off power to the washer, but a supply leak is my biggest concern--and the Elk WSV will obviously handle that.
So, if I have two 2600's in the laundry room, I need only one wire running from there to the WSV, correct? I read that the 2600 should be wired in parallel--but I'm thinking that just means you splice / tap the home run and run from that point to each sensor rather than connecting the sensors directly to one anther? My electrician thought parallel meant a seperate home run for each sensor--but based on comments above it doesn't sound like that's required.
Lou, I like the idea of shutting off the house water 40 minutes after the alarm is armed--I read another thread where you mentioned that, and I actually told my wife about that one. Of course that thread got me worried about water hammer and the fact that I have a hot water heater and no expansion tank. I'll have to talk to my plumber about those issues... He ran Pex to the laundry room, so I assume Pex doesn't have a water hammer issue.
Thanks all; I love this forum!
I did not do the air handlers (though adding them would be a nothing job since they are in the attic, but they have float switches which shut them off. A float switch in the pan should be perfectly sufficient. . . but just like the gri, they need proper installation.
Actually no. The ceiling collapse you see here would not be detected by the pan float switch. The condensate pipe became separated over a guest bedroom. The pan never had any water in it. All the water went to the ceiling over a bedroom and poured into the insulation, until the drywall gave out and everything came down.
Well I assume it's cause someone forgot the glue! Sounds like your AC installer needs to pay for that one. It's funny how things don't work when they aren't installed properly.
My plumbers decided to hook the condensate drain line on my heat pump hot water up to something that wasn't the condensate drain. . . and thus the condensate just ran out. Fortunately the pan caught it. And fortunately I'm the kind of guy who wanders around the attic of my office and notices this sort of thing or it would have just rusted out the bottom of the tank.
I don't think I could have done it if I tried! The solder fell 4 feet into a 1/4 gap. Incredible, but true. ike This
I would not set up a water alarm system to shut off the power to the washer, if it's already shutting off the water. First, as already noted, modern front loaders don't hold much water. Second, if the drain hose falls off the back of the machine, it will run out anyway -- residential washers don't have drain valves; they relay on the top of the drain hose being above the water level to prevent siphoning. So shutting off the machine won't do any good for that case. Third, don't forget that the washer itself has supply water valves and they can leak too. But as long as the machine has power, if water starts to leak to the inside of the machine, it will sense this and pump it out.
I wonder how long it will be before washers start being equipped with built-in leak detection. We just bought a new Bosch dishwasher and it has this.