apostolakisl

If I had had one of these, my water sensor would have failed to work since my leak ran down the wall and would have gone behind and under that pad, not into it. This particular leak would have then gone undetected for probably a couple weeks and would have cost 10's of thousands of dollars since it would have ruined a big section of mesquite flooring instead of just the cost or repairing the leaking pipe. I wouldn't use it and if you did, I would not put the water sensor inside of it. . unless you plan on using 2, 1 in and 1 out. Put the water sensor on the thing you are trying to protect.

They make "smoke in a can". Or you can light up a stogie. http://www.amazon.com/UTC-FIRE-SECURITY ... B000MWWWEI

As long as you get a notification that the water detector tripped, the idea is to go there with a towel and dry up whatever leaked. Mine is connected to the Elk which is connected to a monitoring co. which calls me, along with ISY sending emails. No matter what, there will always be water there, that is the only way the leak detector can detect a leak, so you pretty much need to go dry it up no matter what. I understand that you will have somewhat more water, but I doubt that will change the big picture of going there and drying it up which results in damage avoided. Trying to put a local automatic shut off all over the place like that would be a challenge for sure. I suppose having a faucet somewhere that you can set to remotely turn on and relieve the pressure may be reasonable, but I'm questioning whether it will actually change the end result. . . which is you must show up with a towel. If you are out of town, then you need to have a person with access to the house no matter what.

Ah... Skipped on by it because it was on the data bus connection page. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. All you need to do is pull a single 4 conductor wire (or more, cat5 would work) from your keypad to the wsv. Put your relay at the wsv along with a 12v wall wart and your done. As you mentioned, a UPS could be added.

It's referenced as a feature with "One Programmable Switched Positive Voltage Output" that I had overlooked. And it's actually not documented anywhere in the owner's manual showing the location of the connections or providing any specifications. Where did you get the 50ma rating? Is the output voltage 12V DC? And yes it would be 12v though it doesn't say it. Everything on elk is 12v

The m1kp2 also has a single 50ma controllable output on it, so you wouldn't need the relay board. Just a single relay (with a 50ma or less coil) connected to the output of the keypad. Super Cheap.

Agreed. I have both Elk and Honeywell wireless transceivers but I haven't seen anything to provide a wireless relay controlled by the panel. I'll probably run a multi-strand cable from the garage to the wiring closet where the Elk is a later date. I'll probably have to run it on the exterior under he soffit and penetrate the wiring closet from the outside. It's unfortunate but I don't see another way. Via what mechanism are you activating the valve with the Elk? Elk m1g has one built-in relay and you can buy relay boards (8 per board). I have 32 relays on mine running all kinds of stuff in addition to the wsv. EDIT: Also, you can remotely locate a relay board. You will need to run an rs-485 connection to the relay board just the same as a keypad. And, don't forget that most of the Elk keypads have an output on them which you can use to run a relay, so if you have a keypad near your water valve, you need only pull a wire from the keypad to the valve.

I've really been struggling with this one. I like the reduced risk associated with having it off when away. Not only does it protect against the rare event of power outage during a leak but it also statistically means I'm far less likely to have a leak at all while away. I'm away from home 25% of the time so that means having it off would leave no pressure to have a leak at all during that time. My dishwasher and washing machine run up to an hour so I'd need a delay at least that long. The landscapers are here at any given time on Friday and need the water on then. Ice maker in the fridge wouldn't be able to fill. So there's that..... It is an electric motor. How many times can it operate until failure? I'm have no clue. Cycling it a minimum of 2 times a day and often 4 or more means it will fail a lot sooner than running a test program once a month to make sure it's still working. I also worry about the Insteon command to turn it back on failing as they occasionally do when returning home and dealing with the WAF of no water because of the HA system. The full-on HA project is already a sticky subject at times. When I think about all those things and then consider how rare it would be for there to be a power outage during a leak I shy away from the idea. Perhaps I'll feel differently once fully installed, and I've tested it out for a bit. My hose bibs split off prior to the wsv and the sprinkler is on well water, so those problems are avoided for me. I shut the hose bib valve off in the fall and drain the pipes in the winter. I paid the high price for the wsv so I can get 20 years out of the little motor in there. It is absolutely a high-end device and I see no reason that the motor in there shouldn't last longer than I do. My ice machines pulls off of my reverse osmosis filter which has a pressurized holding tank. So it keeps working fine for quite a few batches of ice even with the water off. In short, the water turning off when we arm the system is invisible from a user standpoint. The only way I know it is working is because it is in the garage and I can hear it turning the water back on when I come home. The scary thing in my opinion is the fact that you are using Insteon to control it. At some point it will fail, and I can promise you that it will be Insteon's fault, not Elk's. That is why I hardwired mine to my Elk and hardwired my water sensors to the Elk as well. But I can understand that a retro-fit may be cost prohibitive. I put mine in during construction.

Having owned a wsv for 5 years and operating several times every day (every time we arm away), and the fact that it can be manually turned, I would say that you need not be concerned about it failing. The bypass only helps you if it jams in the closed position, and having a union fitting would let you pull it out and replace it with a short piece of standby pipe you could keep "just in case" is a 2 minute job. I don't personally keep such a piece of pipe on hand since I don't think a jamming shut is a real risk. Assuming you are paying a plumber, between parts and labor the bypass is probably adding a couple hundred dollars to the project. You also end up with a pretty bulky set of pipes. You also introduce risk that somehow the bypass is left open and a real water emergency that properly shuts the wsv off does not actually shut your water off. Testing is just done when someone is not taking a shower. You for sure should have a second valve in line with the wsv between it and the city and you for sure should put a union fitting so that the wsv can be removed if need be without cutting copper. The second valve for me is at the street.

What is the purpose of the bypass? The only use I see is if you wanted to remove the Elk valve without interrupting water to the house. But I see that as a bit overkill since the Elk valve is pretty bullet proof and most home owners can go a few hours without water even if it did need to be removed. I would recommend using a union on one side or the other of the Elk. If you do need to remove it, there is no way to remove it without a union on at least one end without cutting copper. A union allows you to unhook one end and then spin the valve off of the threads at the other end (provided you leave enough clearance around the valve to spin it, otherwise you need unions at both ends). I bought 2 of them from http://www.surveillent.com/elk-elk-wsv- ... valve.aspx The price was less than $300 when I got them (each). Surveillent does not win any awards for customer service, but I did get them after about a month and they were correct. EDIT: And one more suggestion. Program your alarm system to turn the water off when it is armed away. This takes care of the risk of a power failure and pipe burst happening at the same time. If you are home and a pipe bursts, you can do a manual shut off. If you aren't home, then the water is already off. I put a 30 minute delay so my wife can have the washer finish a load . . . I don't like it, but I can't convince my wife to not start laundry/dishwasher and then leave.

The easiest way to describe a test is to tell you to disconnect all the wires at the fixture box and the switch box(s). Then turn the power back on and find the hot wire with you meter. If it is at the fixtures box, then you almost certainly have a switchloop.

If it were me, the first thing I would do is look for an easy way to get hot/neutral into one of my switchboxes. If any of your switch boxes shares the same stud cavity as a wall outlet then it is pretty easy business. Or if you have unfinished basement/attic/crawlspace above/below then you can get quick easy access to it. Otherwise, inlinelinc/micromodule. Of course you may not need any of this since you haven't confirmed a switch loop. It also used to be code to have a neutral shared by 2 circuits if they were on opposite phase. To the best of my knowledge nobody still accepts this, but it is safe. Again, the trouble is if someone in the future doesn't know the wiring and makes changes. Doing this does as also require that you use a bonded breaker which controls both hots together and forces them to be on opposite phase.

Of course this is correct. However, it can be safely done if you only have hard wired loads on the neutral and thus can measure the total amps. However future modifications might be done without knowledge of your extra use of the neutral, which could pose an unsafe overcurrent situation. It is not hard to figure out if you have a switchloop. Turn off the breaker. Remove all of the switches and un-splice your wires at the light fixture's box. Cap all your wires. Turn your breaker back on and test your wires for the hot. If the hot is at the fixture's box, then you may be looking at a switch loop. If you have a swtich loop, then your neutral probably only exists at the fixture. If it is possible to pull a new wire between your fixture and any of your switch boxes, or if you can pull a hot/neutral from a different circuit into any of your switches boxes, this situation can be corrected. With a 4-way, you have plenty of conductors going switch-box to switch-box, so once you get a hot/neutral into any of the boxes, you can re-purpose the wires that go from box to box as hot/neutral. You can also put an in-line linc at the fixture itself, then re-purpose the two switchloop conductors from the fixtures box to the first switch box as hot/neutral. Then re-purpose your traveler wires that go from switch box to switch box as hot/neutral.

I would think that contacting SH directly would be in order here. If you are seriously looking at an order in the $50k price range, SH should be expected to make sure it works or not sell it to you.

Did you try a factory reset and restore? If factory reset and restore does not fix it, try a factory reset and don't join it back to ISY or create any links. If it still beeps, I suppose you could put it behind a filterlinc and see if it still beeps. If that doesn't fix it, then I would say there is pretty close to 100% chance that it is a bad device.

time lengths are short for testing purposes. kind of lost track with all of the parentheses. it is sorta working. when i open (and close) the interior door to enter the garage the lights comes on and stay ons for the programmed time period (about 30 secs) but if i leave the door open and walk into the garage the light comes on and starts the timer and once the timer expires the lights turn off but back on immediately and the timer restarts over and over again (lights going off and on) the motion is not resetting the timer. if a door is open and i try to manually turn off the lights the come back on instantly. Yes, I meant for it to keep the light on if the door was open. In other words, if you were standing there with the door open saying goodbye to someone or whatever, it would not turn off on you. The timer keeps resetting, but the light never actually shuts off on me. Probably because I have it on a 2 second dim rate and by the time it start dimming down, it just goes back up without a noticeable change. Also, when you post "code" use the "code" button at the top. It keeps all the tabs and spacing in place. Helps a lot with following parentheses.

It would be the door status. When you close the door, the door status changes, the program triggers again except now it is false. This ends the "then" clause and runs the "else" clause. Here is how I solved that. The name of this program is "back door" If Control 'Back Hall / Back Hall Ext Door-Breezway' is not switched On And ( ( Elk Zone 'Back Door' is Violated And Status 'Garage / Third Garage-Breez L' is Off And Program 'Dark Outside' is True ) Or ( Program 'back door' is True And Status 'Garage / Third Garage-Breez L' is not Off ) ) Then Set Scene 'Breezway S' On Wait 5 minutes Repeat 15 times Set 'Back Hall / Back Hall Ext Door-Breezway' 250 (Beep Duration) Wait 2 seconds Repeat 1 times Set Scene 'Breezway S' Off Run Program 'back door' (Else Path) Else - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action') Notice the last clause Or ( Program 'back door' is True And Status 'Garage / Third Garage-Breez L' is not Off ) This tells ISY, if this program is already running and the light is on, then keep it true. So, when the door opens, the light turns on and the program starts running. When the door closes, the program triggers again and the first part is now false, but the "or" statement above is true, so the program still runs the "then" clause. It does start the timer over from scratch. Please also note that you need this final line of the "then" Run Program 'back door' (Else Path) This makes the program register as "false" as soon as it finishes. Also notice the first clause Control 'Back Hall / Back Hall Ext Door-Breezway' is not switched On This allows me to abort the timer by pushing the "on" paddle of that switch. Since it is a "control not switched on", it triggers with an "on" press (which aborts the wait/repeat) but the "not" causes the "else" clause to run.

This is clearly a very unskilled way to "pick" a lock. I put "pick" in quotes since it is actually forced entry. They aren't actually picking the lock but rather forcing the mechanism. To me, the worrisome point is that you can't see external evidence of forced entry and apparently even if you go to use it with the correct key you can't tell. But just be aware, any lock you might use on your house can be defeated pretty easily and not leave any sign of tampering by someone with limited access to tools and a few hours practice. I can tell you that virtually any lock with the standard pin/tumbler can be picked (picked not forced) quite easily. When I was in college I was always taking things apart and screwing around. Somehow I got onto locks. I made my own lock pick set out of a stainless steel spatula (chemistry lab) and a grinding wheel, and after a few hours practice I could pick any lock I was presented with in a couple minutes. Cheap locks I could pick in a few seconds since they had fewer pins and more slop in the mechanism, but even commercial style heavy duty locks never took me more than 5 minutes. Now I didn't run around picking every possible lock, so I am sure there are some I would have failed at, but again, I had a home made pick and no formal training and was shockingly successful. I did not go onto a career in the field of locksmithing or cat burglar, however.

As far as I can tell "repeat 0 times" is a non-functional command. If there is some use for it, I don't know what it would be. I would think that "0" should not be an option at all since it just confuses people.

My foscam cameras have sound activated alarms built-in and will send emails in response. These are the same cameras SH sells under the Insteon brand.

For you to actually shut your water off every time you leave the house, linking with a security system is sort of a must. You might actually shut it off as its own thing when you leave, but I bet you/your wife forget/lose interest. In fact, I have two remotes buttons in the car, one just does the normal garage door, the other shuts the door, sets the alarm, turns off the water and does a number of other things like put the house lights into away mode, shut of the tv, etc. With the simplicity, we never neglect to properly set the house to un-attended mode. Regarding the flow sensor types, I don't own one, but I believe they have algorithms that manage to ignore regular usage and not confuse that with a leak. But you would have to do more research on the subject. I know someone who has one and he has never complained about the water being shut off during regular usage. The "swimming pool in the house" is an obvious disaster in very short order. But small leaks while away for a few days can also be a disaster. Shutting the water off when out of town is an absolute must. In fact, I used to do that even years ago the old fashioned way, I turned the valve by hand. As far as the massive damage in short time, every story I have ever come across on that is the washing machine hose. It happened to my parents next door neighbor a few years ago and trashed their house in 2 hours while out to dinner.

I have the Elk WSV and the Elk panel. I have about 40 hard wired water sensors under all the fixtures and water using appliances. It has successfully dedicted one leak under the dishwasher that I would not have otherwise found until way too late. As it is, I had some minor buckling of my hardwood floor in the kitchen, but it could have been way worse since the leak was such that it was tracking under the floor, not on top. Sadly, there is no way to dry the space under the floor, so I had to just let it dry, and it did every so slightly buckle the floor a couple weeks later right in front of the dishwasher. But that beats the entire kitchen floor being trashed. I have the Elk shut off the house main every time we arm the system to away after a 30 minute delay to allow for dishwasher/washer to finish if already running. Not ideal, I know, but wife wouldn't have it any other way. But this prevents any sort of leak when out of the house (at least after 30 minutes of not being at the house), regardless of water sensor operation. You can never prevent 100% of leaks. I know 2 people who have leaks in their copper pipes right in the middle of a pipe. You obviously can't put leak detectors under every foot of pipe in your house. So you have to play the odds. A flow sensor style may have picked that up. But in my father's case, that would have done no good. It was a pipe in the ceiling above the kitchen, there would have been no way to know where to look until you saw the damage in the ceiling. It literally was a hole so small that the water spray I mistook for a cobweb and when I put my hand through it I couldn't even feel the water until I left it there for several seconds. Since I use hardwired Elk sensors and my Elk has 6 hours of backup, I should be covered pretty darn well as far as power outage. But having power failure and water leak at the same time is mostly unlikely. Aside from perhaps freezing pipes coinciding with a power failure, but usually power failures from cold weather happen around the 32 mark from heavy snow or more likely freezing rain, and that really isn't cold enough to freeze pipes. Plus they usually don't leak until after it warms again, and by that time power is typically restored. If you are out of town during such an event, no worries, the water is already off at my house (unless it happned in the first 30 minutes of being out of town). Of course if you have a potential pipe freezing event, it would be a good idea to not rely on the automated system but do an actual in depth manual check of all items at risk. Also keep in mind that ANYTHING YOU DO to shut your water off in the event of a leak is way more than 99% of people do since most people do notta. So even a system with some shortcomings still puts you way ahead of the curve and reduce a relatively small risk to a very small risk. Just make sure that you don't install a completely useless setup since that is just a waste of money. Also realize that most water events are not full out gushing open lines. Probably the only common exception to that is a ruptured washer hose. So get a good hose and make sure you take the effort to put a highly reliable and quick shut off mechanism under the washer. Most other water damage occurs from slow leaks that go undetected for long periods of time. So a slightly flawed system under such items may not get you instant shut off. Since your house is already built and an extensive hard wired system is probably out of the question, I would try to gauge the relative risk at any given location and install something at each location that balances the cost of installation against the cost/probability of an event at that location.

Like Lee said. "Is switched on" means someone went to the switch and tapped the on paddle once. That is the only thing, not dim up, not fast on, not being turned on from a program, not being turned on from a scene, not anything except a single tap to the up paddle.

You can use xathros' program. If you do not want his program to run, the person turning the light on can use the "fast on" (the double click). This will not trigger the program and the light will stay on. You can also add to his program And is not switched fast on This will allow you to abort that program if it is already running. I also use the "beep" function on my switches. When the timers are in the last minute, I have them beep every couple seconds to warn you that they are about to shut off. IF control light is switched on and control light is not switched fast on Then wait 4 minutes repeat 30 times beep wait 2 seconds repeat 1 time set light off Else - -

Also, the older switches need a power cycle before new settings take affect. EDIT: and by power cycle I mean flipping off the circuit breaker or pulling the reset tab.