Water Alarm - Anyone Use Them? Do They Work?

[Jandrews]

We have a whole house water softener and an under sink Reverse Osmosis drinking water system. It is a high end commercial unit, and the results are simply outstanding. About six months ago, while I was traveling on business, my wife called my hotel room in a panic saying that the area under the sink was gushing water! She couldn't tell where it was coming from, and had no idea how to stop it. She ended up running out and getting a neighbor who came in and located the shutoff valve in the source water R.O. tubing. It literally ran full blast for about 8 minutes, and drained through our kitchen floor to our (thankfully unfinished) concrete basement floor.

A couple days later when I got home, I determined that one of the caps on one of the filter housings cracked/failed, which resulted in the unabated water flow. I have since fixed it (replaced with a heavy duty housing), although I don't know why the first one failed. Was there a stress fracture? Water pressure build up? Not sure.

Anyway, all good and all back to normal now, and luckily there was ZERO damage to the house. But imagine if she was at the gym, or at school, or grocery store, or anywhere for several hours!! We always turn the water off at the source when we go on vacation, but man, I am now worried about another failure during a regular day or night.

Sorry for the long background. Thinking about a water alarm. Are there any that can send a text to a phone, or are they just audible alarms. Any other ideas. I guess even an audible alarm would be good for a night-time failure, but would be willing to invest in something more sophisticated given the amount of potential damage resulting from something like this (particularly if we decide to finish the basement).

Thanks,

JA

[red-beard]

Well, not good for what you are thinking, but leak frogs work with an audible tone. I setup my parents house with them in the water pans. They had a leak and it went off.