LeakBot

Sterlingtimes

I have during the past week installed a LeakBot which strives to monitor water usage and identify leaks within the household. Has anyone else here used a LeakBot?

Meatballs

Sounds like a good idea, wonder how well it can pickup very small leaks like seepage from a plumbing joint 

One property we had a pinhole leak in a pipe under the floorboards which I only found after lifting the floors for another reason and wondering why the ground was so damp.

Would be more interested if it allowed integration into home assistant for water monitoring and costs!

Sterlingtimes

Meatballs said:

Sounds like a good idea, wonder how well it can pickup very small leaks like seepage from a plumbing joint 

One property we had a pinhole leak in a pipe under the floorboards which I only found after lifting the floors for another reason and wondering why the ground was so damp.

Would be more interested if it allowed integration into home assistant for water monitoring and costs!

Thank you for responding. Much attention here is given to energy household automation but virtually none to water.

My Leakbot is still in the learning phase but the following is interesting:


It does appear that the Leakbot is rather "digital" in its approach: i.e. water is either flowing or it is not. However, reviews are good and it looks as though LeakBot is very efficient at detecting even very small household leaks.

Severn Trent has installed a smart meter under the pavement at the bottom of my drive. Once Severn Trent is able to provide web-accessible reports later this year then I will be able to see volume usage online. I think that this will be half-hourly.

LeakBot together with the smart water meter will provide a very good perspective on what is happening in the water domain.

Meatballs

I think my supplier said something about smart water meters too, I probably signed up as interested. At least as you can't change water suppliers it can't become such a farce like SMETS1 meters

Poppypress

Sterlingtimes said:

I have during the past week installed a LeakBot which strives to monitor water usage and identify leaks within the household. Has anyone else here used a LeakBot?

I have had a Leakbot for 5 months. It reports the tiniest leaks but the problem is it does not tell you where they are? I have currently got an active leak and have had the plumber to check everything from ballcocks in tanks to taps. Am on high alert for stains appearing but other than that pretty helpless. 

noitsnotme

Had one fitted for a couple of years now.  I bought it from eBay rather than it being issued by a supplier or insurance company. It has picked up the tiniest of leaks that have usually turned out to be a tap left on very slightly.  But as Poppypress says it doesn’t tell you what or where the leak is and it can be difficult to track it down.

It reported recently and I checked all the usual taps the kids don’t always switch off completely but I couldn’t find anything.  Eventually I worked out it was the shower valve cartridge had a tiny leak but it wasn’t obvious because it was discharging in to the very long shower hose.  New valve fitted and all is good again.

If you can’t find the leak, the app does give you the option to contact them about calling out someone to trace the leak.  I’ve not needed to use this so far but the feedback I’ve seen looks good for it.

The water usage monitoring is very basic.  The app just shows daily use as low, medium or high so doesn’t give any meaningful data other than a basic pattern.

Sterlingtimes

Poppypress said:

Sterlingtimes said:

I have during the past week installed a LeakBot which strives to monitor water usage and identify leaks within the household. Has anyone else here used a LeakBot?

I have had a Leakbot for 5 months. It reports the tiniest leaks but the problem is it does not tell you where they are? I have currently got an active leak and have had the plumber to check everything from ballcocks in tanks to taps. Am on high alert for stains appearing but other than that pretty helpless. 

I now have some experience with Leakbot. It did detect a leak within the first couple of weeks of use. I telephoned Leakbot support, and a technician came to my house within a week. The technician plugged a device into the Leakbot and a laptop computer. Graphs are shown with an unexpected level of granularity showing pressure against time and water flow against time.
Very quickly, the technician was able to replace a leaking valve in the cold water tank in the roof.

An additional leak was discovered within my water softener. Leakbot is unable, of course, to repair a leak within an appliance. The water softener is working correctly albeit that there is an apparent leak of 25ml per minute. The water softener sellers tell me that this is consistent with a regeneration. 

Unfortunately, Leakbot currently has a bug and cannot put the display on the android application back to where it was before the leak.