Best affordable flood sensor

[goldriver]

16 months that's low battery life even compared to some zwave (junk) would have expected 5+

[logbuilder]

In my utility room, I want to monitor my water heater. It currently sits in a plastic pan. There is already an Arduino in there monitoring motion. The plan is to run two wires from the Arduino to the pan under the heater. The ends of the wires will be tinned. Each wire end will then inserted into a sponge. When the sponge gets wet, there will be continuity between the wires that the Arduino will be able to sense and send an alert to HS3.

Might work, might not, but in theory it should. Cost - near zero.

[Pete]

Very nice logbuilder!

[Pete]

Here aside from flood detector also added a PT camera.

Only issue in the utility room over the years was my Bradford White water heater and one of two sump pumps.

Folks there at Bradford White helped me much with it such that it remained a Bradford White natural gas water heater.

The other issue was purchasing a high priced with a lifetime warranty sump pump from a big box store. It went out in 6 months. I was pissed off and literally threw it on the customer service counter (putting dents on it) when I returned it. I went to a good water pump not provided by a big box store and never had problems afterwards.

[greenredblack]

I bought a couple of the aeotecs on sale at staples. They work ok, but I never could get the battery to report, they just stay at 0%.

[logbuilder]

In my utility room, I want to monitor my water heater. It currently sits in a plastic pan. There is already an Arduino in there monitoring motion. The plan is to run two wires from the Arduino to the pan under the heater. The ends of the wires will be tinned. Each wire end will then inserted into a sponge. When the sponge gets wet, there will be continuity between the wires that the Arduino will be able to sense and send an alert to HS3.

Might work, might not, but in theory it should. Cost - near zero.

Been working on my mud/utility room this weekend. Added a temp/humidity sensor to the arduino based multi-sensor Works OK but not great. It reports just fine but in inaccurate. Also installed a 220 relay on my well pump. Now, during times of away (ie. winter) I can shut off the well, HW heater, and softener. If I had a pipe break, it would burn out the pump. I feel much better now. All integrated into the HSTouch app.

The Arduino multi-sensor has an input for door/window sensors. Off or On. I don't use the Arduino to monitor the door in there, I have an Insteon door sensor. So I decided to try the water sensor idea with the sponge and tinned wire ends.

We keep old sponges. I use them to clean machinery as well as for soldering. I got one of the old/dry ones. Just using my sharp kitchen knife I sliced it into a 1.5" x 1.5" x .5" square. When dry it cuts real nice. I then tinned some old speaker wire ends about 1" long. Then I took my drill and drilled two holes just big enough for the tinned wires. They are about .5" apart. Slid the wires in all the way. When dry nothing. Slightly wet and still nothing. Poured about a tablespoon on it and the contact was made. It won't turn off until the sponge drys off. I have it drying now so see when it looses continuity. Integrated into HSTouch for visibility. Need to think of the appropriate actions to take based on a leak alert event.

All in all I'm pleased.

[logbuilder]

It is now over 18 hours since becoming wet. Only now is it showing a status changing from leak to no leak as the sponge dries. It works but could be improved. I'm wondering if I just soldered the tinned leads to a small piece of prototyping board with maybe 1/4" between them. Might be more binary in behavior. On the other hand, what I want to know is when there is a leak. Not so much when it dries up. With that in mind, it is working well.