Water leakage sensor ideas

Try this thingy for $80. Kills the water for you.

Or, you could replace the heater now and avoid the mess. GG

Classic solution: a clothespin, a couple of pennies, and an aspirin tablet.

John

My heater stands on concrete outside the house (temperate Australia) and leaks are very apparent and not messy.

Neither copper or aluminum are good for this application. You need gold. I was planning on trying a gold plated header strip for this. I will place multiple sensors at strategic places in the basement and the detection circuit will drive a relay which will disconnect the well pump.

I saw a helpful hint on this - don't clamp the tablet between the pennies - actually, you should use brass screws through the clampy part of the clothespin, but then put the aspirin edgewise in that little clothesline notch in the clothespin, so there's no aspirin-stuff between the electrodes.

Cheers! Rich

Replace the electrode. Most water heaters have a zinc or is it magnesium electrode down their centre which stops them from rusting out, when the electrode becomes depleted they start to rust.

Either of those will do. but if the floor's wooden i'd go with s ring of thumbtacks with wires soldered to alternate ones.

Or could you drain it and slide a tray under it?

Bye. Jasen

Soak the sponge blocks in brine, and let them dry in the sun or something. :-) For that matter, you could use blotter paper and a couple of alligator clips, but don't forget the brine! :-)

Cheers! Rich

"My gas water heater (50 gallon) will spring a leak in the next two years, if past history is a reliable indicater (Replaced in '78, '88, and '98, neighbors also get ~ 10 years out of theirs). It will leak slowly, at first (again, if history repeats). I want to detect that and replace the thing at the first signs. Has anyone brewed up a sensor for that purpose?" _____________________________________ Re; I just built one for my hot water heater about a year ago. My heater sits in a small closet and I was concerned not only about "wet" leaks but also leaks that evaporate before puddling that would go unidentified. So, my leak detector has two simple sensors; one to detect liquid water in the pan the water heater sits in and one to detect high relative humidity in the closet. My wet leak detector simply consists of a discarded 6V wall wart cord with one of those concentric male plugs on the end; you know center positive, sleeve negative or vise-versa. My high humidity detector consists of a piece of cotton string, suspended between two stainless steel wires, that has been soaked in a nearly saturated sodium chloride (table salt) solution and allowed to dry. When dry the string does not conduct electricity, but when the relative humidity reaches 75%, the NaCl deliquesces and the string conducts. This "sensor" is simply mounted on the circuit board ( the string is has about 2" clearance from the board surface, to get a fair sample of the ambient air) and electrically parallels the "wet puddle" sensor which has it's cord to allow the remote location of the wet "sensor" in the water heater pan. I epoxied a magnet onto the circuit board so I could stick it on the side of the heater. It operates on a single, circuit board mounted, 9V battery and has near zero idle current. A piezo buzzer sounds when the wet probe gets wet or when the closet RH goes above 75%.

Dan Akers

I have to ask - why gold instead of copper or aluminum?

Thanks, Ed

Thanks to all who have replied.

Some interesting ideas!

Here's one from E that didn't make the board. Paraphrasing:

Sink a stainless steel bolt into the concrete floor if it's on concrete (they usually are), and use it as one half of the sensor with the heater the other half. When the concrete gets wet the resistance will drop.

Anyone know anything about that? If nothing else, it's an interesting experiment I could try using a cinder block. I wouldn't use the body of the heater - hafta scrape the paint off to do that. I don't think the circuit connection would cause electrolysis (guessing a few micro amps) - but bare metal on concrete isn't something I want to do. But two bolts might be worth considering. The advantage is that (if viable) it detects without a puddle - the water doesn't have to reach some minimum puddle height to touch the sensor.

Ed

Aluminum oxide does not conduct and copper will tarnish badly at basement floor level. Neither will make a particularly good sensor. Stainless steel or almost any other off the shelf plated connector would be better e.g. nickel, tin, phosphor bronze are also common

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This was my first thought....the sacrificial anode has disolved and your water heater becomes the new anode and then leaks. Change your anode rod every 5 years or so (just a guess based on your 10 year time period). Is your plumbing all copper, galvanized (my guess) or plastic? The least noble metal will plate out and that is where the leak will start. Perhaps you need a dieltric union where your water heater connects to your plumbing....good luck, Ross

Thanks. Actually I'm not trying to solve the "problem" of the heater leaking. My assumption, right or wrong, has been that these appliances have a life expectancy of ~ ten years in this area. It would be interesting to discover what the average life expectancy is, or should be. That said, I will investigate the idea of replacing the anode. I suspect it will turn out to be impractical, but I don't know. The reason I say impractical has to do with clearance above the heater. It may be that the thing has to be "uninstalled" to get at the anode. When this heater goes bad, I'll have full access to the defective, uninstalled unit, and can go through removing the old one and then replaceing it (pretending it is new) just to see what's involved.

To answer part of your post - it's copper plumbing throughout. And to address another issue in the thread: there is no mess when it leaks. It sits on concrete in a cinder block room - part of the garage - and drains outdoors if it leaks. You don't see the leak in the garage, so it is only by happenstance you might discover it. The reason I want to detect it at first sign of the leak is to (possibly) avoid unscheduled emergency replacement or an unexpected cold shower.

I appreciate the interest and replies. While some things may not apply to my situation - like the dielectric union or the mess avoidance - they are certainly valid in other circumstances, and belong in the thread.

Ed

Then you should go ahead and swap out the water heater, and plan on replacing the anode in maybe 5 years. First, see what's involved in swapping out the anode - there's a possibility that it'd be fairly simple to disconnect the water pipes (like, use unions) and tilt the drained heater to slide the anode out:

Also, be sure to drain the sediment out periodically.

Have Fun! Rich

Thanks. You're the second person to say that, and I'm puzzled by the idea. I'd be throwing away 20% of the thing's life, if the ten year figure holds true. Am I missing something?

The maintenance you mention below may extend the life considerably - I don't know - but at least I "get" that idea.

and plan on

Nice link! Thanks again, Ed