It worked PERFECTLY....

[Gliderman8]

About 4 years ago I built a wireless (z-wave) water shut-off system for my house after my mother-in-laws house sustained about $75K of water damage due to a broken toilet tank while no-one was home.
I installed small round moisture detectors like this

in all the bathrooms, laundry room, kitchen and the BASEMENT by the water heater.

Yesterday evening I was getting ready to leave when I received this text message:

As soon as I got the message my wife called to say she also got the "alert" and wanted to know what was going on. I went into the basement and found that my water heater supply line had started to leak and was streaming out of the top of the water heater. Once it started to pool onto the floor the moisture sensor notified the z-waved control box and the water to the house was automatically shut off in seconds avoiding major damage and sent me a text message to let me know.

This is the water shutoff valve and control box I installed:

This weekend we happened to be away and without this setup it could have been much worse as the water could have continued to run the entire time we were away!
This system just saved lots more than the cost to put it in.

 

[Basil]

That is awesome! Need to get me something like that. A few months back I was out in the garage and happened to notice water dripping from the ceiling. I thought it must have been the pvc tube that runs from our water softner to the kitchen, but alas it was actually the flex hose on top of the water heater had developed a pin-hole leak and was spraying a small stream up onto the ceiling (making it look like the leak was from above the ceiling). Is this system something you bought off the shelf or did you make it from various components?

 

[DavidApp]

Thank you for that information.

We have a well so shut off of the water would be easier.

I am going to look into getting a setup like that as we go away from time to time and the house is empty. At 10 gallons a minute we would have a mess to clean up.

David

 

[Gliderman8]

Is this system something you bought off the shelf or did you make it from various components?

I bought the z-wave control box; it’s called Vera (but there are others). I also bought the moisture sensors.
Then I sourced the water shut off valve and installed it just after the water meter and wired it to a relay that’s hooked up to a z-wave receptacle. When the moisture sensor signals the control box, the control box turns on the z-wave receptacle which energizes the 120v shut off valve.
Since I built mine there are ready-made devices that will shut off the water but I don’t think it will notify you.