Moen Leak detector

[JoeWras]

I had one that was really hard to figure out for a long time in my water heater.
Somewhere in the bottom a leak started inside, where it would basically drip into the 'combustion' area (natural gas heater). Basically, the leak was converted to steam and went out the flue pipe area.

Eventually I figured it out when all my metal stuff in the garage started developing a patina of rust on anything not painted.

I wonder if that's what happened to my latest WH? My detector went off, and the pan was starting to fill and drain out. I arranged for a replacement, which occurred 8 days later. But after day 2, the leak stopped. When the leak was occurring, I checked the T&P valve, the inlet/outlet, and the drain valve. All dry. It was dropping from the bottom. Maybe there was a pinhole in a side-seam (flowing internally down the insulation) or the bottom. Who knows. I figured the pin-hole self-healed due to some sediment. But it might have also just slowed and was being burned off. My basement garage was feeling really hot and humid. After replacement, it is now a "dry heat," which everyone knows is OK.

In any case, I feel that the detector gave me a good head's up on this problem. Don't mess with intermittents. Cut it off before the "whole bottom blows out" which as seen above, is very possible.

I could be wrong, but I think this detector saved me a lot of future pain because it caught the intermittent early.

One last thing about water heater tanks. I was a bad handy-man on this one and didn't do maintenance. I lost track during a time when both me and my parents had health issues. By the time I realized I let maintenance go, it was 7 years or so. This is a case of "don't poke the sleeping bear." I just didn't mess with it because sometimes you cause issues if you decide to drain sediment or replace anodes 7 years into a WH life.

I have posted a maintenance schedule on my new WH and will follow it religiously, including anode replacement. BTW, my home setup is not good for tankless so I'm sticking with the tank.

 

[Walt34]

Although we've never had a serious undiscovered water leak we have had a number of close calls over the years, enough so that I felt justified in buying about a dozen of these water leak detectors and placing one under or near the water heater and every sink and toilet tank in the house. Also behind the refrigerator, as we've had three leaks from the icemaker water line. At just over $10 each the cost is minimal and the potential cost savings is huge. Last year a next door neighbor had a water leak that resulted in well into five figures in damages overnight. And yes they were home at the time.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Resideo...ater-Leak-Detector-with-Alarm-RWD21/204116885

 

[plex]

This isn't that low probability of a problem. Almost every apartment I've lived in has had the bottom of a water pipe cabinet get slowly destroyed by water leaks. I've also seen a washer have a bad leak once. If I owned my own place, I would certainly put a cheap sensor in there so I don't have to pay $500+ or much worse decades early.

 

[Music Lover]

I'm done doing things for pay, but do enjoy helping out neighbors who are amazed at my ability to do stuff like sweating in a burst freeze proof spigot or change out a toilet (Really? Yeah, a lot of non-DIYers around me). BUT, the last toilet I did next door gave me pause. Neighbor had stumbled in the dark and broke the tank, dumping ~2 gallons of water all over. He cleaned up, and I told him I'd set a new one if he bought. I did, and then a week or two later he noticed water stains in ceiling downstairs of the toilet. I freaked out thinking maybe I'd misjudged the landing on the wax ring. Turns out it was just the water from the original burst, found its way along all the drywall seams. But, I'm rethinking my volunteer electrical and plumbing repairs based on that.

Good point. I recently installed a dishwasher for a friend but after it was done I told myself that I won't do any more projects for people that involve water. If something goes wrong even a year later that wasn't my fault that's a hassle I don't want.

 

[Livefree]

Of the leaks that I have had only one would have been where a leak detector would have been. The bottom of my hot water heater blew out.. and I mean BLEW OUT... there were 50 gallons of water on the floor in seconds... we were outside when it happened, just outside the back door and it was loud...



My other two leaks were in copper pipes at my old house.... there were pinholes in the copper and a smallish leak that I saw running down the wall... they were not in a place where you would think a leak would happen...

I was a Landlord for 35 years, and this was my worst fear. Luckily, the water heaters I replaced, had slow leaks, or I replaced them pro-actively at the 10 year mark.

 

[JoeWras]

Good point. I recently installed a dishwasher for a friend but after it was done I told myself that I won't do any more projects for people that involve water. If something goes wrong even a year later that wasn't my fault that's a hassle I don't want.

Yep.

I was chatting with the installer for my water heater, and he had a war story about a call back from a customer on an install they did 9 months previous. A leak in the wall occurred on the other side of the house from the water heater, and the customer wanted him to take responsibility for it.

 

[RetMD21]

I saw an Moen advertisement for this leak detector that will send a message to your phone if it detects a leak. Might be handy for the laundry room? There was a code on the website that offers it for $49. Anybody out there try this or something similar?
View attachment 42876

What about this Moen whole house monitor and shutoff. I saw it in a new construction home

https://www.moen.com/flo/how-it-works

 

[Sunset]

....... If we traveled more, I might be more motivated to get one that texts me, and I just might hook up my own system for that (it's really easy with a cheap Arduino board and a little programming). A BIG advantage of doing my own would mean I'm not dependent on these external services that might go away some day. It just a bit of canned code that I used, for email/text, add your wifi info and email addresses - then just call the email code when you want. Configure it anyway you need.

.....

Let me know if you decide to make your own, as I'd like to do that, but have no experience with an Arduino board. I'd like to get text message as I don't check my email much when out.

When we travel, I turn off the house water, as we had a big leak once where the toilet shutoff valve simply burst open approximately 2 days before we returned from a long trip.

 

[Jerry1]

FWIW, after reading all of this, I’m going to go get a detector and place it in my utility room. I live on a slab and my utilities are all in one room in the garage. There’s the water meter, water heater and my furnace has a condensation line that needs a little sump pump to move the water to a drain that is above floor height. Seems like one or two detectors would be good for that room as I could have a slow leak that I don’t see in there for a week. A larger leak I’d probably notice much sooner. I keep my garbage bags in there to force me to inspect that area at least weekly.

 

[misanman]

We have an audible leak detector under the kitchen sink. I believe it has saved us 2 or 3 times. The most recent was when the garbage disposal developed a leak and required replacement. Another time a drain was accidentally bumped and subsequently leaked. Text or email notification would be a plus if you were away from home a lot. For us, I'm not sure that would add that much value.

 

[ERD50]

Let me know if you decide to make your own, as I'd like to do that, but have no experience with an Arduino board. I'd like to get text message as I don't check my email much when out.

When we travel, I turn off the house water, as we had a big leak once where the toilet shutoff valve simply burst open approximately 2 days before we returned from a long trip.

I have one in place now, but for my sump pump, not any water alarms.

Text vs email is no problem, all the mobile companies have an email gateway for texts. To text your phone, you just send an email from the device with your phone number and that gateway address. Here's one hit that came up for "email to SMS", and a few examples (they list a few dozen carriers, you could always ask if your carrier is not on the list):

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-send-a-text-from-your-email-account/

number@vtext.com Verizon
number@txt.att.net AT&T
number@tmomail.net T-Mobile

I use these to text someone from my computer when I'm texting from home - so much easier with a large screen and real keyboard than squinting to 'type' on a touchscreen.

My sump pump code is fairly involved (mostly my own 'feature creep' and 'for the fun of it'), as I have it set up to monitor three pumps, update a 4 Line, 20 Char display on the unit with 4 or 5 different 'pages' to display (hour, day, week, lifetime history, max/min values, etc), menus for resetting/setting certain conditions, record history, and send reports several times a day (just to get status, and to know it is working), and send a report at the top of any hour that a pump runs, and send an immediate report if certain conditions are exceeded. For those immediate reports, they also get texted to my phone (via email).

The emailing code seems very robust, I didn't do much testing, but we've had several short term internet outages recently, and it never seems to miss a beat, it appears to recover and send later.

But a water alarm would be simple code: just "detect water - send email/text". If I get around to it, I'll post the code here.

Here's the library I used:

https://github.com/mobizt/ESP-Mail-Client#send-email

All I did to their send email example code was plug in my WiFi info, my email and phone SMS email recipient addresses. I created a gmail account for it to send from, so it isn't tied to my regular email accounts in any way. The thing that makes this a little tough for general use is that you need to hard code the WiFi and email addresses in, so if you wanted to make some for friends/family, that's part of the program - if they change their WiFi SSID or PW, it's a (minor, but inconvenient) program change.

I've thought about adding an SD CARD reader, I could put that stuff in a simple text file that could be edited by anyone with some simple instructions, and I'd even like that - I'd rather update a config.txt file than have to hook the thing up to a computer again if I change something on my end.

-ERD50

 

[braumeister]

These leak detectors inside the house are a good idea, but only if the leak is also inside. Our meter is only read once a quarter, and between our last two readings a leak occurred when the copper pipe between the meter and the house developed a crack.

Many thousands of gallons were lost but the first we knew of it was when we got a snail mail letter from the water department that said our usage was unusually high and we should check for leaks. Getting a plumber to fix that was both difficult and costly, since the pipe ran through our garden and was six feet below surface level.

 

[ERD50]

emphasis mine:

These leak detectors inside the house are a good idea, but only if the leak is also inside. ...

This isn't logical. The leak detectors are still a good idea. Not being able to protect against every case doesn't mean they aren't still worth having for the cases they can/do protect against.

-ERD50

 

[braumeister]

Congratulations on picking the nit of the day.

 

[ERD50]

Congratulations on picking the nit of the day.

Well, another poster or two said much the same thing, so there seems to be a trend. I thought it deserved a response. No big deal.

-ERD50

 

[jastew]

I saw an Moen advertisement for this leak detector that will send a message to your phone if it detects a leak. Might be handy for the laundry room? There was a code on the website that offers it for $49. Anybody out there try this or something similar?
View attachment 42876

I got a batch of Honeywell sensors free from my homeowners insurance a few years ago. Put them in the water heater area and laundry room in primary home and vacation condo. Comes with an app that gives me notifications. Also tells me temp and humidity levels.

 

[imnontrad]

I got a Simplisafe security system and for the heck of it, added the water detection disk ($12). I put it near my water heater and did not touch it. One morning at 4 L30 am, I got a call from the Simplisafe call center saying that the disk had triggered an alarm. I went down to the utility room and sure enough there was a small leak from my water heater - probably less than 1/8 cup liquid. I just turned the water supply off and went back to bed. Later that day I drained the tank and then went through the task of replacing it. Since I rarely go into the basement, that little disk saved my thousands of dollars in damage and headache.

 

[bl1289]

Moen Flo

I have the Moen Flo whole house leak detector. It is much more expensive, but it does protect the whole house. And it does text you. And it detects other things besides leaks. When it was first installed it let me know that my water pressure was way too high. I live at the bottom of a hill and the pressure reducer was broken and I did not know it until Moen told me to get it fixed.

 

[gutterman]

I have the Koogeek water leak detectors. And they work. I bought one a few years ago and put it in the water heater tray as my water heater is on the second floor. A few months ago I am on vacation and my phone starts beeping for the water leak detector. I call a neighbor who checks it out for me and confirms the water heater is leaking. I then call a plumber and have them replace a four year old water heater.
When I got home I bought more and put them under all the sinks. Well worth the money.

 

[Canoeboy]

Ring alarm systems have a water/freeze sensor that can be added to their system for $35 (1 time purchase). It’s a little puck that you place where you want to monitor. You can set it up to notify you by email or push notification. If you have the subscription based protection plan (I don’t) You will get an automated call when it is tripped. Of course, you need a Ring system to start with.

https://ring.com/products/alarm-flood-and-freeze-sensor

I put one at a basement wastewater pump station in case the pump fails and the pit overflows (basement floor level). I have it set up to send me a push notification on my cell phone and to provide an audible spoken alert in the house. Thinking about putting another under the kitchen sink and possibly one near our water heater. Batteries should be replaced every 3 years. No experience with it being activated outside of testing it.

 

[bl1289]

shut off water when going away

while these detectors have some benefit, I always shut off the water at the main if going away for more than 1 night. I know far too many people who have had disasters due to water leaks while they were away. I have a rental, and wrote as a lease condition that the water must be shutoff if the tenant is away.


also turn off the ice maker. ice makers can break if they try to make ice when the water supply is shut off

 

[RockLife]

Modern moisture detectors = good

I saw an Moen advertisement for this leak detector that will send a message to your phone if it detects a leak. Might be handy for the laundry room? There was a code on the website that offers it for $49. Anybody out there try this or something similar?
View attachment 42876

I've got one that connects to Apple Homekit and sends an alert to my phone if it detects something. It also audibly alarms. I love it.

Background: just got a new kitchen last year and the cabinets were damn expensive. 6 months later, I noticed that things were wet under the sink. I found a loose drain pipe. I tightened all these once but one came loose. My theory is that the garbage disposal vibration loosened it. So I bought a rubber mat like you buy for cars but designed for this purpose. And I added the moisture detector. I'm not losing those cabinets to a slow leak!

Am also considering one for each bathroom sink. The laundry/water heater doesn't matter as much because it's in the garage.