A motorized ball valve to shutoff water to my house

[jteneyck]

I narrowly avoided disaster last year when an expansion tank on my boiler developed a leak while I was on vacation.  By some miracle, the leak stopped after losing only a few gallons of water.  That incident convinced me I needed to do something to prevent a real disaster.  There are several options you can pursue.  Leak detectors look appealing except you need a detector wherever you might expect a leak.  There are wireless systems which simplify the installation of those systems, but I'm not sure they are well enough developed to have complete confidence in that approach.  After thinking about it I decided to go for the simplest approach possible, a motorized ball valve installed right after the pressure regulator controlled by a manual switch. 





When you leave the house you arm the security system and flip the water switch off, the opposite when you return home.  It can't get any simpler.  Of course, it provides no protection when I'm home, but I'm home so I'll probably know if there's a leak.  I may still some sort of shutoff for the laundry, however, since that's a prime culprit for major leaks. 

Installation was straight forward plumbing and electrical.  I installed unions, as much as I hate them because they are a bear to get to seal, so that the valve can easily be removed/replaced if/when needed.  My out of pocket cost was about $150 for the valve and plumbing and electrical supplies.  

John

[DieselDennis]

Gonna tell us who makes the valve?

I've used similar valves, but all were 12V.

[jteneyck]

Gonna tell us who makes the valve?

I've used similar valves, but all were 12V.

Sure, it's this one by Baco Engineering

John

[Roly]

Sure, it's this one by Baco Engineering

John

 If your electric goes off so does your water.    Roly

[jteneyck]

 If your electric goes off so does your water.    Roly

Yes, but I have a whole house generator so it will be back on in 15 seconds.  For someone w/o a generator, you would want to put a bypass loop around the motorized ball valve. 

But now you have me thinking that I should either buy another one of these valves or build an assembly to fit where the valve is, if/when it dies.  

John

[blackhat]

See if you can remove the actuater and turn the valve stem manually.

[jteneyck]

See if you can remove the actuater and turn the valve stem manually.

Yeah, that thought occurred to me.  Some valves are made so that you can do that w/o having to take off the actuator, but I couldn't find one to fit my needs though I didn't do an exhaustive search.  But I'll bet you are right that, one way or the other, the valve can be turned manually. 

John

[BrentDH]

From the Q and A for this product on the Amazon site:


Question:
Can this be manually open or closed?  In case the motor fails and a replacement motor is needed.

Answer:
the actuator can be separated from the valve and the valve can be opened or closed manually using a large screw driver or coin. If you get the normally open one, on power failure the valve will open and you will have water... I have mine mounted using pex and sharkbite push fittings, so I can rotate the valve around and reach the screws.

[ez-duzit]

Why not just manually turn off the water when you are leaving the house unattended?

[EricU]

Why not just manually turn off the water when you are leaving the house unattended?

He is.  Oh.

I have one of the auto shutoff systems in my wish list at Amazon.  I think most of my potential leaks would end up at the low end of the basement, so I really only need one sensor.

I turned up the heat on a gas water heater too high and it started overflowing.  Heard water running, but I was too tired to give it much thought.  Crawl space was full of water. Fortunately, the heater started right up when I turned it back on after I replaced the PnT valve. Nothing else in there to get damaged