Which z-wave leak/flood detector works best?

[NeverDie]

When I searched the HomeSeer forum, I mostly read about people having problems. Has anyone found some that "just work" and that they're truly happy with?

Do any of the detectors support instant status? I hate to rely on polling.

I'd like to get a few leak detectors to put under sinks, in the water heater drain pans, and in the condensation overflow pans of my air conditioners in the attic. With water leaks, it's obviously better to catch problems early.

Any pointers?

[gfs]

interested in this myself. i have used the fortrez units they are not good. everspring are ok. i am using the insteon leak detectors so far so good.

[chewie]

There is a thread around here somewhere discussing using the DS10's and cutting off the magnetic closure lead and attaching it to a leaf sensor to do exactly what you are trying to do. I have setup a few of these and they work well. It is basically a PCB board that shorts when it gets wet and lets the DS10 send an alert. I set mine up so that when the DS10 shorts to open it sends a text to me saying that I need to check the location of the device for a leak. Also they are VERY cheap.

[gfs]

these are great... we made them a few years ago. some solder. ds10s and the water/leaf sensor. perfect.

[Olbrit]

You asked about Z-Wave, so...FortrezZ WWA-01 and Everspring ST812-2 have both worked fine for me. Personal opinions:
WWA-01 - I like it's 'heart beat' with temperature and battery updates so I know it's still alive and kicking. But I find optimizing it a bear sometimes if I don't press the button for just the right period and frequency.
ST812-2 - always been easy to setup and optimize. But I've never had a battery update and there's no 'heart beat' so I don't have that 100% warm and fuzzy comfort feeling whether it's active or not in between tests.

I'm gradually upgrading all battery devices to wall-wart power, but I'll change out any remaining batteries every 9 months regardless, and test the water alarm quarterly.

Now, any new water detectors I buy are the ST812-2 mainly because I power them via wall-wart and plug this into a Z-Wave receptacle. As I'm only at the house quarterly, this means that if I want to re-optimize the ST812-2, or review/change its config for any reason while I'm away, I just have to power cycle the receptacle and this puts the ST812-2 into awake mode for few minutes so I can 'talk' to it. It's impossible for me to do that remotely with the WWA-01 as the button has to be physically pressed even after a power cycle.

Regarding your other questions, neither device can be polled, and they don't have instant status, per se, as they do not respond to a manual action (like a light switch), but they do respond almost instantly when they sense water.

For my really paranoia-driving water leak concerns, like the attic-mounted drip pans for the HVAC Fan-coil and Dehumidifier, they each have a WWA-01 AND ST812-2 in them!!!

Hope that helps.

[gfs]

so what wall power units will you be using for water sensors?

[Olbrit]

Me? For the ST812-2s, just regular 4.5VDC or 5VDC 1A supplies I find online. I leave the WWA-01s on battery as they are either secondary water sensors in case a ST812-2 stops working and/or loses wall power in a critical location, or they are just in a place that's not easy for me to get power to. One or two of those I may still convert using 3VDC 1A supplies later.

[gfs]

sounds smart. good to back them up

[gfs]

also I have a winland wb200 water bug. this is hardwired and ac powered.

[NeverDie]

There is a thread around here somewhere discussing using the DS10's and cutting off the magnetic closure lead and attaching it to a leaf sensor to do exactly what you are trying to do. I have setup a few of these and they work well. It is basically a PCB board that shorts when it gets wet and lets the DS10 send an alert. I set mine up so that when the DS10 shorts to open it sends a text to me saying that I need to check the location of the device for a leak. Also they are VERY cheap.

I notice there's also a thread where Rupp and "The Keeper" report that the DS10's + leaf turned out to be unreliable: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...ighlight=wb200


That said, do we know if the other flood detectors being discussed here are actually any more reliable?

[GeniusJunk]

Has anyone tried the Aeon Labs Water Sensor? I hear that it works pretty well according to a friend of mine.

[NeverDie]

How are people positioning their leak detectors under sinks? Depending on what leaks and where, I could imagine water trickling out of the front of the cabinet (e.g. for a kitchen sink or a bathroom vanity) and missing the sensor entirely. It would seem to require either a custom fitted tray or else possibly a glued-on ledge at the front of the cabinet so that enough water depth develops to guarantee the leak detector triggers.

Is that what people are doing?

The ledge idea obviously works better if the inside of your cabinet is melamine or some other water repellant material. I sealed the vertical intersections on the bottom of my cabinet interiors with 100% silicone caulk. That will keep water leaks from attacking the melamine's substrate. I used clear silicone, and it's virtually invisible.

[NeverDie]

Has anyone tried the Aeon Labs Water Sensor? I hear that it works pretty well according to a friend of mine.

Where did he get it? I saw some on ebay, but not anywhere else. I tried looking for the product manual on Aeon Labs' web site, but it wasn't there and the Aeon website seemed to imply that Aeon hadn't released it yet. I'm not sure what to make of that.

[NeverDie]

I think I'm leaning toward getting the Wet Switch Flood Detector:


According to the manufacturer, just one or two drops of water will activate it. The sensor array is stainless steel, so hopefully it will avoid any corrosion failures.

It's not z-wave. However, it's designed to hook into controllers and alarm systems. What sort of z-wave device should I hook it into? Maybe the MIMOLite?


Or is there something better and/or less expensive?

[DMcKnight]

I have a Fortrez moisture sensor, but don't like some aspects of it. I don't really trust it.

Instead I made about 5 home-brew devices with DS10 and DS12 units. I didn't use a leaf sensor. Instead I used a transistor, so that I only needed a couple of wires sticking out the bottom of the boxes as the water contacts. The DS12 units look almost chic, and they work very well. I have them in various places, and on more than one occasion have been very important due to some sewer back-up problems we had...

Doug