Has anyone successfully replaced the Watercop actuator with a ball valve lever turner, such as the Zooz ZAC36 Titan?
It should be possible by removing the Watercopy actuator and putting on a rough-in valve such as shown in the image below. Mine didn’t come with a rough-in valve, so part of this is finding out whether some stock handle will fit it.
The goal of this exercise is to not only get rid of the semi-reliable non-Plus Z-Wave actuator, and replace with something more reliable, but to put a new, stronger motor in place. My existing Watercop, even though I exercise it regularly struggles to turn the valve.
I mean if you can find a lever that fits the Watercop valve, that’s all you would need to switch. That would alleviate the need to cut anything out.
Exactly. It should work, but there may be some gotchas. The ball valve handle needs to have the right hole to fit over the valve, and I’m not seeing any that look exactly like the ones in the photo. Also, the replacement handle will sit tight with the valve square, which may be unlike a typical ball valve which may not provide enough clearance.
bent steel and a dremmel?
Another option which won’t be very messy is to ignore the watercop, temporarily turn it off, cut the line and insert a sharkbite lever valve in front of it. Then simply turn on the water cop for good and leave power off to it. Then you simply use the sharkbite lever valve as your main cutoff. I have 2 valves on mine. One before the meter and one after.
