Drifting off on the sofa the other night watching the Mets game. All of a sudden an alarm sounds. I have no idea what or where it is. Tracked it down to an under the kitchen sink Basement Watchdog dumb alarm.
I have a couple of totes under the sink to hold chemicals, brushes, and what not. I put a dumb water alarm in each. I also have a smart sensor taped to a dumb alarm sitting outside of the totes.
Anyway, the faucet sprayer hose sprung a leak. It leaks every time the water is turned on at the faucet.
This is the second time that alarm saved me. The first time was a slow drain leak from the same sink. It's quite loud and batteries last forever and there's a 10' cord if desired...these date from 2018.
I'm going to look for a larger tote so I could cover the area under the twin sinks without a seam...or I guess I could tape them together and save some time and money.
Anyway, totally dry and no harm done. Except of course paying an exorbitant price for a replacement Blanco hose (waiting on delivery).
Search for " Under Sink Kitchen Cabinet Mat ", they have a bunch of standard sizes and some that can be custom fit. I have one under each sink in my house, They look nice, are easy to clean compared to most cabinet/shelf materials and can contain quite a bit of water before they overflow, plenty of time for my water sensors to go off and for us to react (will eventually instal a water valve).
Funny, I just spent yesterday afternoon going through the exact same thing with the sprayer hose suddenly leaking, except I didn’t have a water sensor and probably had a lot more water before it was noticed. Luckily the basement is unfinished so no real damage there.
My smart sensors aren't loud. Throw in the expense factor, and for 15 bucks each with a loud siren, I think the dumb alarms were a good investment.
edit: Oh, and the Euro sourced Blanco fixture is harder to get parts. I "lucked out" and found one on ebay for 85 bucks! It came with a lead weight...big whup. It'll still probably be better than trying to make a generic one work. It's not like there's an isolation valve...if the hose is disconnected, every time the faucet comes on water would come shooting out. And mine is in the kitchen, as in, used all the time.
I stripped off the armor coating on the outside to reveal the rubber tube in the middle. Then I folded it over and put a clamp on it and then put the whole thing inside a 5 gallon bucket just in case.
Good thing too as the eta for the part is 10-14 business days. (Probably coming from China)
The leak is still slow, but constant every time the faucet is on. I'm monitoring.
Admittedly I didn't go into it in depth, but on the Blanco web site I was close to identifying a part number which had to be ordered from a dealer. Not nearly as user friendly as Gerber, Delta, etc.
If this thing I ordered works out, I'll maybe see if I could've made something work with a generic replacement kit with the old hose.
The totally dumb ones that I use have incredible battery life, which is something you want in a leak detector. Uses NO power. The batteries are from 2018! Still loud as hell.
Here it is compared to the standard Neo Coolcam/Tuya sensor (which also works great and can even use a rope probe) Although these are 19 bux vs 6. The advantage of the Neo Coolcam/Tuya is the external 3 foot probes they come with.
