Basement Watchdog Water Sensor and Alarm
Detects unwanted water only 1/32" deep
Our handyman picked up a few of these eight or so years ago and recommended we put them around our basement in our old house. Between then and now, these relatively inexpensive (~$12 a pop) boxes have saved us probably thousands of dollars in water damage over the years.
As an example – this fine Saturday morning we were sitting around relaxing when my son asked “what’s that sound?” After determining it wasn’t the strange TV show my daughter was watching, I ran downstairs to find that the box I had placed near our sump pump was going off – from what turned out to be a burst pipe pouring water into my office. It was bad – but would have been much, much worse if this little box hadn’t gotten our attention. (The only downside was that I didn’t have these in more places. I’ll be buying a dozen more to place around our basement to catch leaks in unexpected places sooner.)
Basically, the box has two metal contacts that, when they are connected via any water will cause a high pitched alarm to sound. You just plug in a battery, and set them wherever you think you could have a leak. (Even a very small amount will trigger it – there are suggestions about placing it on a paper towel to absorb/trigger it faster on the Amazon page that seem sensible.) I haven’t used other varieties of this device – but these Watchdog boxes seem to last a long time (they say 5 years on one 9v batter, but I know ours have gone longer), and work very well. I’m very happy with them, and this seems like the kind of thing where I’ll stick with what I know works. I just ordered a bunch more.
10/14/16Basement Watchdog Water Sensor and Alarm ($12)
