I'm looking for a flood sensor that I can attach to the side of an outdoors sump so will potentially be cold and damp in the winter. The idea is that the sump fills with water to the level that the sensor is at and then that is configured to turn the pump on. When the level drops it obviously turns the pump off. The unit will need to be fully submersible and suitable for an outdoors environment.
Anyone any recommendations? I'm in the UK if that makes any difference.
I appreciate there are pumps with various kinds of float switches but due to the nature if the water being very silty and the limited space in the sump I can't find a good pump at a reasonable cost.
I already have a suitable pump but need a means to control it automatically.
Thanks
Wouldn't you be more comfortable with a float switch which is purpose built for this job? The switch can be completely independent of where the pump is located, so I don't understand that reason for ruling it out. And if you wanted to integrate your sump pump with Hubitat, that can be done with something like a ZEN15.
Ahh ok so am I looking at that correctly. The plug on the float switch is a switched passthrough. The float switch plugs into the mains socket and the pump plugs into the back if the float switch plug?
Thank you. After reading your replies I had another look and found a reasonably priced and nicely spec'd pump that incorporates a float switch as you described that actually fits in my sump. I think your advice is wise, whilst hubitat is great I'm not sure I'd like to depend upon a sometimes fragile zigbee or z-wave connection. Point in question my C8 hung today for the second time since I have had it.
Many thanks for your help and advice.
I agree. But don't abandon Hubitat integration altogether, I use a ZEN15 and monitor run time, displaying info on a dashboard telling me useful info .. in particular whether soil saturation is increasing or decreasing. That serves as a proxy for monitoring my septic system.
