By Ron Strelke, President, Force Home Services
Whole house water leak detection would have been nice last month during the big freeze. In hindsight it sounds good, right?
Smart home devices are popping up all over. We plumbers are gadget guys and gals. We hear about a new “smart” gadget and we are dying to try it out.
About a year ago we started installing a smart device for monitoring water usage throughout the entire home. I tried it in my home. It’s called FLO. Not my nickname, the actual name of the product.
We installed it with the phone app that lets you see all your water use in real time.
It monitors pressure, temperature, and rate of flow. It learns how and when you use each of your fixtures. It determines the normal times you use toilets, faucets, washers and showers, and how much water they use.
I thought, “this is pretty cool,” but I didn’t really have a need for it.
Wow did that change with the freeze. My first alert was when the water temp dropped below freezing. We still had running water, but we knew we had multiple fixtures that were frozen.
From my phone I shut the water off to the entire house each night from bed and then back on in the morning. During the day when pipes thawed, and leaks popped up I did not have water flooding my house because FLO alerted me and then automatically shut the water off.
We went through this for four days until it completely thawed, all leaks stopped, and house was back to normal.
Even if I was not home, I would not have had a flooding issue because of FLO.
My point is, this seems like a frivolous luxury, until it is not. We have had installations paid for by the insurance company.
Get more information at forcehomeservices.com
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