Remote Water Leak Detection

There's nothing quite like returning from a trip and finding that a water leak has caused substantial damage inside your house. A water-filled basement or water damaged floors and carpets are just a few examples of unattended plumbing leaks. Over time, damage from an undetected water leak can cost thousands of dollars to repair. Although this has not happened to me, it is something I worry about when traveling for long periods of time. For some time, I've been thinking about installing a water leak monitoring and reporting system.

My basic requirements for a water leak detection system include the following capabilities:

• Monitor for water leaks and, upon detection, contact me via a mobile app, text message and/or telephone call.
• Send alerts to several voice, phone app and/or text telephone numbers. Thus, if I miss a call, my wife or adult children will also be notified of the leak in the house.
• Monitor, detect and report a water leak in absence of electrical power.
• Concurrently monitor several plumbing locations within a two-story house, such as master bath, laundry room, water heater, kitchen and guest bathroom.
• Easy installation and setup, with no electrical or construction modifications.

Two standalone water leak detection systems met many, if not all, of the above requirements. One was the SNUPI Wallyhome system. The Wallyhome system hit the market in 2014 to positive reviews (see WIRED magazine). Unfortunately, SNUPI seems to have recently hit a financial roadblock and  the Wally water leak detection system is no longer available for purchase. The other system was the SK662 Wireless Water Alarm System with Auto Dialer, made by Ideal Security.

With this information, I moved forward to try the SK662. This kit contains one telephone auto-dialer and one SK616 water leak sensor.

Telephone Auto-Dialer
The console is a landline telephone auto-dialer unit with LCD display. One auto-dialer can monitor up to 16 sensors. The auto-dialer unit is AC powered but also includes a 9 Volt battery backup.

The auto-dialer installation instructions were fairly straightforward. Little assembly is required, only insertion of a battery, attachment of antennae and insertion of cables into a wall electrical outlet and phone jack. The auto-dialer requires a landline telephone connection. If you plan to call into the auto-dialer to remotely enter commands into the sysdtem and you have an answering machine on the same landline, you may not be able to use the answering machine. The incompatibility occurs as the auto-dialer needs to answer an incoming call to accept remote commands before the answering machine function intercepts the call. This only affects the dial-in function and does not interfere with the auto-dialer calling out to deliver a leak alert. I didn't foresee many instances in which I would need to remotely control the auto-dialer, so I simply kept the default setting of no call-in functionality.

There are a wide variety of auto-dialer settings that can be changed based on personal choice. These settings include:

• Unique passcode, up to six numbers,
• Date/time, 
• Record/playback/edit of a personal alert voice message,
• Enabling of autodialer internal 105db alarm, 
• Enabling remote call-in function into the auto-dialer,
• Enabling auto-dialer outgoing leak alert calls,
• Entry of up to five telephone numbers for receipt of leak alert, 
• Number of cycles for the autodialer to repeat alert alarms, 
• Number of telephone rings before the autodialer intercepts an incoming call, and
• Delay time, in seconds, between arming the alarm and actual alarm activation.

Each of these settings can be changed using the auto-dialer keypad.

SK 616 Water Leak Sensor
Activation of the battery powered water leak detector was easy. Insertion of the battery into the sensor was all that was required. I tested the capability of the wireless leak detector to communicate to the auto-dialer from a number of locations in my two-story house. All tested sensor locations were within 200 feet of the auto-dialer, as specified by the manufacturer. The wireless communication between the sensor and auto-dialer was not obstructed by doors, walls or floors.

Observations
The audible alarm on the standalone water leak sensor is loud (105dB). The local sensor alarm may not be necessary if you receive telephone alerts.  Moreover, in a typical residential house, it is easy for someone to visually check the sensor locations for a water leak. Via a small switch on the leak sensor, the audible sensor alarm can be disabled without affecting the sensor's wireless communication to the auto-dialer. The instruction manual wasn't quite clear on whether this switch disabled the alarm only or also the wireless function of the sensor..

The auto-dialer also has an audible alarm that is also quite loud (105dB). I disabled this function on the auto-dialer as my plan is to use the leak detector when I'm not at home. Thus, any audible alarm would sound to no one's benefit.

As the leak sensor is battery powered, it will be necessary to check/replace the 9 volt battery in both auto-dialer and leak sensor periodically. Ideal suggests an annual battery replacement schedule. Both the auto-dialer and leak detector sensor have low-battery indicators, which should be helpful. I usually place a date label of the most recent battery change on battery powered devices to remind me when 12 months have elapsed.

The SK662 only came with one leak sensor, I purchased a second SK616 Ideal wireless water leak sensor from Amazon. Defining the second sensor to a new zone in the auto-dialer was clearly described in the instruction manual. The only issue I ran into was the need to complete the new zone definition within 20 seconds of initiation.

I contacted customer support once via email and by phone. A helpful email reply was received within a couple of hours. Telephone support was also available. Both contacts were for minor instruction manual clarifications - confirming that disabling the sensor alarm does not interfere with sensor communication to the auto-dialer and time restriction for defining a new sensor zone.

While the SK662 is sold as a wireless water alarm system, several other Ideal Security sensors can be paired with the auto-dialer. Sensors are available for motion detection, temperature, door/window openings and power failure. While I probably wouldn't use this system in place of a full service hardwired residential burglar alarm, it could serve as a somewhat portable and inexpensive entry alarm unit for a small apartment, where restrictions against significant room modifications exist. However, a cell phone cannot be used with the remote alerting function of the SK662.

It would be convenient if the SK616 leak sensors could communicate to other home automation systems. This would reduce the number of automation systems that you need to setup and monitor. This type of integration is not available at this time.

The SK662 system is available from Home Depot and Amazon, suggested retail is $129.99USD. Individual SK616 leak detectors are also available from Home Depot and Amazon, suggested retail is $49.99USD.

Updates: Searching through Amazon, I found a D-Link WIFI DCH-S160 leak sensor that looks promising. However, each D-Link sensor must be plugged into a 110V outlet. Thus, if storm induced electrical power failure were to occur, the monitoring and alerting function of this D-Link unit, let alone WIFI, would likely fail. For a six sensor installation at suggested retail pricing, the D-Link system is substantially more expensive than the Ideal solution. The D-Link system also cannot easily alert multiple parties. One benefit of the DCH-160 is that landline telephone service is not required.

Geekwire reported that Sears Holding Company has acquired Wallyhome technology from SNUPI. It is anticipated that Sears will migrate this technology to become part of the Sears Connected Home product line in the near future.

Full disclosure: Ideal Security provided a SK662 system to me at no cost, other than shipping. Additional Ideal leak sensors were personally purchased.