water detection
- Thread starter gfs
- Start date
mustangcoupe
Senior Member
Depends on the rest of your HA system. and your final needs. (is it detection or detection and turning off the main?)
I plan on adding water sensors to each critical location ans then tying these into my ELK for detection. I have not yet determined if and how I am going to shutoff the water... I know there are a few different shutoff valves.
Btw, I just bought those cheap leaf wetness sensors, they are very easy to interface.
You can buy those type of pre-made packages, or you can roll our own. I use the X10 W800RF32 wireless receiver to pick up events from wireless DS10A's. Instead of the normal magnet and reed switch on the DS10A's, I've replaced them the with the leaf wetness dection boards from Hobby-Boards. So when the leaf detector board gets wet, it closes the contact switch on the DS10A and it sends out a RF signal that the W800RF32 picks up and reports. So you'll need some system to react to this report (see below for information, but I use CQC for this).
The w800rf32 runs about $70 and is the most expensive part of the system. You can get 6 ds10a for $19.99 ($3.32 each) and the leaf wetness detection boards run $2.00 each. So after buying the antenna, the actual sensors run about $5.50 each.
You can also wire multiple leaf wetness detection boards to one DS10A. So if you have a bathroom with double sinks, a tolet and a shower, you could wire 4 leaf detectors on 1 DC10A and if any of those started leaking, the DS10A would send a signal out to the W800RF32. You could then act on that signal and produce some sort of alarm, etc. However, you could also wire the tolet, shower, and sinks all on different DS10As so you could know which one was actually leaking. It all just depends on how narrow you want your notice to be. 1 leaf detector per DS10A will let you know exactly were the water is leaking from, but costs more money.
The good news about this system is that it is very easy to set up because the DS10A's are wireless. It is also easy to add detectors (or zones) in the future. About the only downside is that you have to remember to change out the batteries ever once in a while. But battery life should be very good since the DS10A's only send out a signal when they have an event occur. So if the wetness board doesn't get wet, they really are not using that much battery power.
The DS10A's and W800RF32 don't use the power lines in your home to send/receive signals. So the reliability is virtually 100% as long as the DS10A's are in range of the W800RF32. They don't have all the "issues" that many x10 setups have. You also do not need any other x10 equipment to run this set up. I only have the W800RF32 and the DS10A's in my house - no other X10, and everything works great.
I use CQC home automation software in my house. So when the W800RF32 receives a signal from one of the DS10A's, I trigger on that and announce across the house that "There is a leak in XXXXXX location." I repeat this command every 10 minutes until acknowledged by someone pressing a reset button on my touch screen. If I had a water valve that would close via a contact closure, I could also have the CQC automatically shut the water off. This would be helpfull to prevent damage in the event that we are not home when the leak occurs, but I simply have not bought a valve like that yet. (If I did install a valve like that I would probably only have it close if 1) the leak occured at a fixture that if it leaks it is generally catastrophic - like the washing machine,etc or 2) the notification of the leak wasn't acknowledged for 30 minutes, etc. This would prevent the water from being shut off becuase the kitchen sink has a small drip, etc).
Hopefully that is clear enough to get an idea of how I have set up my system. I think it will end up being more customizable and cheaper than a lot of the packaged solutions on the market. Of course it needs some sort of automation system to tie it all together. I haven't checked, but even an ELK or HAI may be able to handle this requirement.
The w800rf32 runs about $70 and is the most expensive part of the system. You can get 6 ds10a for $19.99 ($3.32 each) and the leaf wetness detection boards run $2.00 each. So after buying the antenna, the actual sensors run about $5.50 each.
You can also wire multiple leaf wetness detection boards to one DS10A. So if you have a bathroom with double sinks, a tolet and a shower, you could wire 4 leaf detectors on 1 DC10A and if any of those started leaking, the DS10A would send a signal out to the W800RF32. You could then act on that signal and produce some sort of alarm, etc. However, you could also wire the tolet, shower, and sinks all on different DS10As so you could know which one was actually leaking. It all just depends on how narrow you want your notice to be. 1 leaf detector per DS10A will let you know exactly were the water is leaking from, but costs more money.
The good news about this system is that it is very easy to set up because the DS10A's are wireless. It is also easy to add detectors (or zones) in the future. About the only downside is that you have to remember to change out the batteries ever once in a while. But battery life should be very good since the DS10A's only send out a signal when they have an event occur. So if the wetness board doesn't get wet, they really are not using that much battery power.
The DS10A's and W800RF32 don't use the power lines in your home to send/receive signals. So the reliability is virtually 100% as long as the DS10A's are in range of the W800RF32. They don't have all the "issues" that many x10 setups have. You also do not need any other x10 equipment to run this set up. I only have the W800RF32 and the DS10A's in my house - no other X10, and everything works great.
I use CQC home automation software in my house. So when the W800RF32 receives a signal from one of the DS10A's, I trigger on that and announce across the house that "There is a leak in XXXXXX location." I repeat this command every 10 minutes until acknowledged by someone pressing a reset button on my touch screen. If I had a water valve that would close via a contact closure, I could also have the CQC automatically shut the water off. This would be helpfull to prevent damage in the event that we are not home when the leak occurs, but I simply have not bought a valve like that yet. (If I did install a valve like that I would probably only have it close if 1) the leak occured at a fixture that if it leaks it is generally catastrophic - like the washing machine,etc or 2) the notification of the leak wasn't acknowledged for 30 minutes, etc. This would prevent the water from being shut off becuase the kitchen sink has a small drip, etc).
Hopefully that is clear enough to get an idea of how I have set up my system. I think it will end up being more customizable and cheaper than a lot of the packaged solutions on the market. Of course it needs some sort of automation system to tie it all together. I haven't checked, but even an ELK or HAI may be able to handle this requirement.
