Water Management
AquaSense - SMART Control your Household Water

How to SMART control your water supply system

Ever had a mains water leak or accidently left a bath tap on and gone to work or left your home for holiday? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get an alert that a water leak is happening or better still shut off the water supply in an instant.

Did you know that over 100 homes per day in UK are significantly damaged and need to claim on their home insurance from water damage caused by a water leak or accidental flood. For example, caused by a tap being left on and causing a sink or bath to overflow.

Below we will explain our reference way to install home water leak monitoring to enable you via your phone or HayMacs platform to be notified of a water leak or flood situation. (For HayMacs to control your water system you need a HayMacs AQUA-SENSE starter kit – See here for more).

Click the below image to run our video overview. HayMacs AquaSense Solution Overview.

The first thing we recommend is to place water monitoring sensors in notable flood prone places in your home. For example, under your kitchen sink, in your basement or boiler room, in a bathroom. Essentially, a place where and accidental water overflow may occur. There are several options on the market, and we will recommend a few to help you get started.

1 – AJAX water detecting sensor – LeaksProtect

This device can be simply applied via a 3M pad to most surfaces or simply placed on the floor where a flood may occur. Pictures are from AJAX Systems website. If you have an AJAX Smart home or Security solution in place, then these are the best option on the market today.

Please contact HayMacs here for a quote to supply and configure these.

2 – HayMacs AquaSense Water Leak Sensor

This device is also simple to install via adhesive tape that comes on the underside of the sensor. Simply install Smart Life or eWeLink Application, place the sensor into bind mode and then add the sensor to your Smart Life or eWeLink application (please note for these sensors to work you do need a Zigbee hub in your property which are typically now in smart light switches or can be purchased as a standalone hub for less than £30). Once set-up you can activate notifications and as soon as the sensor detects water you will be notified on your mobile phone device (or tablet device). You can add a skill to allow the water sensor to also notify you via Alexa devices if you have these in your home. Smart Water Management

Now for the ‘Smart part’ – Actuating a water valve under certain conditions. It is useful to get notifications of water leaks or a flood but of course it’s much better if you stem the flow of the leak as quickly as possible. This section will explain how to control the water flow via WaterStop (AJAX) and AquaSense (HayMacs) You need to install or ask your local plumber to install a smart water valve or valve actuator. The valve actuator when you have a turn valve is very simple to do as a DIY task and therefore a qualified plumber is not required. Please note that there are gas pipe valves also available, but we will focus on water flow management and flood prevention in the below section.

1 – Activate a close action on a HayMacs supplied water valve actuator. Once installed this valve is Smart and therefore can be activated via your phone App or automatically via an alert coming from the water sensor that we described above. If a water leak is identified a message notification goes to your phone and you can either shut the water mains yourself by tapping an on-screen button or allow the automated scene to trigger the mains water value to close.

These devices are available now on our www.haymacs.co.uk shop.

2 - Activate a close action on an AJAX Supplied Water Valve Actuator. For users that have the AJAX App and Hub installed they can seamlessly use the WaterStop device to start or stop the flow of water from your water mains feed.

Situations where Water Flow Management is Beneficial

Situations where the HayMacs AquaSense Solution can help;

1 – When you go on holiday; get notified that there is a leak in your property and shut off water supply to reduce damage.

2 – Have elderly family members and want to be able to switch of their water main feed Stopcock valve without having to travel to their home

3 – Landlord with a Tenant that does not know where the mains water stopcock is located. Switch of the water remotely should you be alerted that there is a leak in your property.

4 – Installed in Apartment and Flats – lots of damage can be caused by an apartment water flood running into adjacent to apartments below. Activate water stop valve remotely.