electrically actuated water valves

[jsschmitz]

Funny you should mention Saul Plumbing – I had them out to repair some other issues and we discussed electric valves a bit. He (can’t remember the name now) said some loved them, but others didn’t like the noise from the solenoid style that need power on to stay open.

I’m not too worried about lack of power; all of the ones I’m looking at have a method to manually control them if power is out. I’ll just be unlucky if that happens when I need it. 99% of the time we have power.

thanks for the comments.

[rswheeler1]

I agree with “Tortuga” about calling a plumber. A good one is Saul Plumbing in Avery. They’re really good. They did my whole place when I built it, and installed a new water heater.
Scott

[tortuga]

We ski-leased a place with electric shutoff. The real estate agent detested the system. If we were leaving, and power was out, the agent had to crawl under the house to drain the pipes since there’d be no heat… or hope power would return before freeze set in.

So, when we bought, we opted to have mechanical shut off and drain valves extended into the living space so we didn’t have to crawl under the house or deal with what-if-there’s-a-power-failure.

We were quoted three options — vertical risers into the house from current shutoff valves (into Living room), relocating valves to middle of house and putting levers in sink cabinet so not visible, or external valves on the side of the house accessed from the deck.

You might ask a couple plumbers to suggest solutions for you.

[jsschmitz]

Has anyone had any experience using electrically actuated water valves? I’m looking at one to ease the process of turning off the water when I leave the cabin. It’s not fun crawling under the house in the dirt to turn it off and on. I’ve found 2 that look interesting to me. The first is an add on actuator (http://www.econetcontrols.com/EBV-105-water-shutoff.php). It looks fairly easy to attach and would not require any plumbing modifications, but I question whether it would be robust enough to last for a long time. I already have a zwave controller, so it would be easy for me to use.

The second is a true automated valve (http://www.valworx.com/product/electric-actuated-lead-free-brass-ball-valve-34-12-24v-acdc). That one would replace the current shutoff valve and looks like it would last a very long time.

I’ve seen others that are used for automatic shutoff, but I think I prefer the 2 above (see http://www.diycontrols.com/t-automatic-water-shut-off-valves.aspx). I don’t particularly want something to detect a leak and turn off the water. I’m more interested in robust water shut off for when I’m not at the cabin.

Also, does anyone have any experience with turning off the water at the meter? I’ve heard that in some places the water service or county must turn it off and that homeowners are not allowed to do so. Is that true in Calaveras as well (CCWD)?

[Author]

Posts