A motorized ball valve to shutoff water to my house

[jteneyck]

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

I want to be able to shut off the water every time I leave home, not just when I go on vacation.  And I want my neighbors who take care of my cats when I am on vacation to be able to turn on the faucet.  The motorized valve seems like the only practical way to make it easy to shut off the water every time the home is empty.  

John

[jteneyck]

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.

Thanks.  I guess I'm good to go if the motor fails. 

John

[woodhead]

If you shut the water, the boiler and WH should be shut off.


Don't know if I missed that part??



Al

[jteneyck]

If you shut the water, the boiler and WH should be shut off.


Don't know if I missed that part??



Al

Both have expansion tanks so they should be fine, although I usually shut off my HW heater when I go on vacation.  I installed a check valve in front of the boiler so it can't backflow no matter what.  Obviously, I need to leave the boiler on when I'm gone in the Winter.  Am I missing something?

John

[Phil Thien]

Both have expansion tanks so they should be fine, although I usually shut off my HW heater when I go on vacation.  I installed a check valve in front of the boiler so it can't backflow no matter what.  Obviously, I need to leave the boiler on when I'm gone in the Winter.  Am I missing something?

John

Nope. It is fine provided it isn't leaking and requiring you add water with great frequency.

[toolmiser]

Sounds like a good idea, our house has a water softener that needs to regenerate using water, it wouldn't work for us unless I had that
"tapped in" before the valve and that would defeat the purpose.

[jteneyck]

Sounds like a good idea, our house has a water softener that needs to regenerate using water, it wouldn't work for us unless I had that
"tapped in" before the valve and that would defeat the purpose.

You could put the water softener on a parallel leg, then install two valves.  The leg going to the rest of the house would be protected by the same valve/switch approach I used.  The leg going to the softener would be protected by a valve connected to a leak detector.  Several companies sell them. 

John

[DaveHo]

Wouldn't work in our house.  Dishwasher & washing machine need to run when we aren't home or it'd never get done.

[jteneyck]

Wouldn't work in our house.  Dishwasher & washing machine need to run when we aren't home or it'd never get done.

Some would say that's a disaster waiting to happen.  You might want to consider a Water Cop or something similar, especially if your laundry is upstairs. 

John

[Cooler]

They've long made washing machine emergency shutoff valves. If that works, it will be your least expensive option:

https://www.google.com/search?q=washing+...e&ie=UTF-8

or go and adapt a industrial valve:

https://www.google.com/search?q=electric...e&ie=UTF-8

or buy flood insurance.