Water shut off valve

[apostolakisl]

Do those of you who use or install the whole-house water shut-valve also have whatever controller you use also shut down electrical power to the water heater? I'm thinking of a scenerio where we are out of the house for a few days and the water heater drain valve decides to leak. The Elk senses the leak and shuts off the water supply. As the water level drops below the heater elemenets, the elements overheat and burn out. It seems I'd want to install a relay box at the water heater feed to prevent that damage.

I have the on demand hot water tanks so with water off you have no flow and no flow means no burner on. Assuming you set the relay to shut the tank off every time the valve closes, then you will not be able to close that valve except under a leak condition. In my case, I shut the valve off 30 minutes after the alarm is set to away, protecting me regardless of where a leak occurs. That wouldn't work for you because your tank would get cold every time you left the house for more than a few hours. If you set your valve to only close in the event of a detected leak, that would prevent the cold water problem, but you would only protect yourself from leaks where you have sensors. No matter how hard you try, you can't put a sensor everywhere you might get a leak!

I guess you could switch to an on-demand heater. They are more efficient (especially compared to electric tanks), produce endless hot water, are very small, and almost never leak (as opposed to tanks which pretty much always spring a leak around 10 years). Of course, a retrofit job on tankless could be pricey if you don't have large gas lines and flu access.

 

[Photon]

I wish our new house layout had the bathrooms and kitchen all in a clump. As it is, the kitchen is in the middle with the bathrooms at the far ends. There is no chase for a vent through the roof, so if I replace the tank heater with a tankless, it would have to be on an outside wall at one end of the house. Then it would be about a 90-foot run to the bath at the other end, and I don't want to wait that long for hot water. I think I'll be sticking with the current heater. I probably won't be spending what it would take to install a shutoff valve until after after the flood.

 

[wkearney99]

Do those of you who use or install the whole-house water shut-valve also have whatever controller you use also shut down electrical power to the water heater? I'm thinking of a scenerio where we are out of the house for a few days and the water heater drain valve decides to leak. The Elk senses the leak and shuts off the water supply. As the water level drops below the heater elemenets, the elements overheat and burn out. It seems I'd want to install a relay box at the water heater feed to prevent that damage.

Yes, it's possible for the tank valve to fail but I've never heard of one happening. Just what would you be expecting to happen that would cause the valve to fail but not the rest of the GLASS LINED tank?

And in the scheme of things, aren't the elements rather inexpensive? I'm all for being prepared but if you've had a tank failure you're going to be replacing them anyway. Just how much money is worth spending to save a cheap and easily replaced element?

Even if you had a leak elsewhere on a hot water line I'm not sure how much of it would drain out if you shut off the main. Many tanks are in the basement. So leaks would likely be in a line above the tank. Gravity will keep the water in the tank. Even if the tank was above the point of a leak you'd have the vacuum pressure keeping the water in the tank.

When dealing with water leaks what you want to avoid is a continuous amount of water leaking into the house from the water main. To guard against a tank failure you're better served to put it on a drain pain (and have a working drain hooked up).

 

[apostolakisl]

I agree. The tank would probably not drain even if there were a leak because of the loss of pressure and the ensuing vacuum with the main closed. I also agree about the pan. I have seen tanks rupture and go balastic on the water drainage. Even if you are home, enough water could drain before you notice to make a big mess.

 

[MrGibbage]

For those of you that shut off the water supply X minutes after arming your security system to away mode, do you have problems with ice makers in your refrigerator/freezers? I have heard that if the ice maker runs when there is no water supply that this can cause a problem. And what about your ice generation in general? Do you feel that since your ice maker will only generate ice while you are home that there is enough ice supply for you?

We are just family of three, and I have noticed that our ice maker collection box is full to the top most of the time, so I don't THINK we would have a problem with ice generation rates, but I would still like to know other people's thoughts on this.

 

[Photon]

Yes, it's possible for the tank valve to fail but I've never heard of one happening. Just what would you be expecting to happen that would cause the valve to fail but not the rest of the GLASS LINED tank?

After we moved into our current house, the previous one sat unoccupied for a few months. I checked it out one evening on my way home from work, and I found the drain valve cracked. There was still hot water available at the kitchen sink. The floor was damp from the water heater over to the floor drain. I shut off the water to the heater, and I also killed power to the heater. By the time I returned with parts and tools, the floor was dry and the tank was empty. I wasn't able to find the cause of the crack, but once I removed the valve, the amount of calcium buildup along the crack made it obvious it was cracked for a long tiime.

My experience is that it isn't so much what I expect to happen that has to do with failures. For example, the puddle of water we found on the hardwood floor under one of our refrigerators in the new house was caused by a dust ball in the drain from the self-defroster; not a leak in the ice maker system. Why would I expect the stem of the main water shutoff valve to break off just a few days before we put the old place up for sale? Who could have expected the cold water pipe to the shower to freeze and break in an outer wall in the house we rented while I was stationed in Texas after it had gone through much colder weather in its 20-years of life? I expect the hoses to the clothes washer to weaken over time, so I replace them every 5-7 years. Never had a problem. Then I shut off the two valves before we left on vacation only to have my daughter decide to do a load of laundry for the first time in years. She didn't know to check the valves. How was I to know the new front-loader has a computer programmed to sense low flow and shut everything down? After we returned from the trip it took a service call to get the door open to remove the clothes. I just wasn't expecting that one at all.

Regards . . . John

 

[apostolakisl]

For those of you that shut off the water supply X minutes after arming your security system to away mode, do you have problems with ice makers in your refrigerator/freezers? I have heard that if the ice maker runs when there is no water supply that this can cause a problem. And what about your ice generation in general? Do you feel that since your ice maker will only generate ice while you are home that there is enough ice supply for you?

We are just family of three, and I have noticed that our ice maker collection box is full to the top most of the time, so I don't THINK we would have a problem with ice generation rates, but I would still like to know other people's thoughts on this.

Regarding the ice. I have a reserve osmosis going to the ice machine on the freezer we mostly use. The RO system has a pressurized tank so it will still flow water even after the water is shut off. How much water. . . ? Maybe a gallon. Certainly enough to make more than one batch of ice. I have a second freezer with an ice machine that we almost never use and it is hooked to the regular water. I don't really know if it has tried to make ice when the water is off. Probably it has and probably it did just fine because you still get quite a bit of water when you open a faucet even with the main shut off.

 

[MrGibbage]

This it the first time I really thought about this whole thing.

I actually love your idea to turn the water off each time you leave. No way to spring a leak then. No mater how many (expensive) sensors you get, there will always be another place where you could spring a leak. What about inside walls? So, turning the water off altogether is a much better plan.

But if you are gone for a week, I wonder if the ice maker will have problems. I don't know if ice makers are set on a timer to dump, or if they use temperature sensors to determine when the ice has frozen. And do the ice trays have their own coils for cooling the water/ice, or do they just use the ambient temperature in the freezer? If they just use the ambient temperature, then I don't see how not having water in them could hurt them. Now, if they have their own cooling coils, then it might not be so good for them to have nothing to cool (namely water). I suspect that they do not have their own coils, so risk from damage is probably quite low. And as for production, I hadn't thought about the residual water. Or the RO providing water for a little while. Good comment!

When I get home from work, I'm going to take a good look at my ice maker.

 

[Steve]

At first I thought you came up with a showstopper (or at least an issue) for shutting water off when Armed Away (which I also thought was a great idea). I did not think about the Reverse Osmosis and the tank (which also feeds my ice maker) so that was a bit of a relief. As far as leaving for extended periods - most ice makers built into the freezer have a switch so if you were leaving for an extended period all you need to do is switch it off - you just need to remember to do that. Maybe a TTS or touchscreen or console message that reminds you when you Arm Vacation or something.

 

[apostolakisl]

The standard, in the freezer type ice machine shuts itself off when the ice bin fills up, so if you aren't home, there won't be anyone to use the ice and the thing won't try to make any more. I am pretty sure the ice machines aren't damaged by trying to make ice when there isn't water anyway. I think the solonoid has a timed shut off that quits trying to fill the tray with water if it hasn't succeeded after so many seconds. I have heard it click on and off when I plugged a freezer in that I hadn't hooked water up to.

Some people do have those high end pricey ice makers that make the clear cubes. Those things will keep making ice even if no one is using it becuase the ice dumps into an insulated but not refrigerated chest below the ice making part of the unit. The ice slowly melts and they have a drain in the bottom to let the melted ice out. If you have one of these, you might turn it off if you leave town.

Anyway, I have had my water setup this way for over a year now and nothing has broken. I have it shut off 30 minutes after arming, so occasionally we have a load of wash that doesn't make it and the machine blinks an error code. You just have to push the start button and it resumes where it let off. Same thing with the dishwasher. You really shouldn't be running these machines when you aren't home anyway because of the obvious risks. Even with the water shut off, if it went haywire 1 minutes after we left, there would still be 29 minutes of water pouring through the house!

 

[judge_l]

What about a gas water heater? What could happen if that went dry?

 

[programmergeek]

I know when the water valve shuts off you wtill get several gallons out of the sink just from built up pressure so the icemaker should still work for a tray or two.

 

[MrGibbage]

What about a gas water heater? What could happen if that went dry?

I would think that there would be a thermal check of some sort to keep from burning a hole in the bottom of the heater. But I am not a HWH expert. I would think there are protections in place for electric heaters too.