Saturday, October 29, 2011

Tools, Gadgets, and Widgets - Water Alarm

One of the banes of my existence, is water in the basement. There's an interior floor drain which runs to a large sump pump in the garage. Most times it works well, but if the rain is extremely heavy, the drain or the sump can't keep up and water flows into the basement. It's usually a large puddle, a pain in the butt, but easy enough to keep up with a couple of shop vacs. That is unless we lose electricity, and then all bets are off.

Seepage usually occurs when no one is downstairs or often in the dead of night. By the time we find the water, it's a bigger problem. Himself came across this water alarm. You put it on the floor and when it detects water, it  ends an audible alert, like a smoke detector.

Forecasters are gleefully predicting a Nor'easter for tonight. Snow estimates for my area range from 6 to 10 inches. The snow is expected to be heavy and wet with high winds which may bring down tree branches still loaded with leaves. There's a potential for power outages. No power, no sump pump.  Hopefully, this little alarm will do its job. If the power goes out, Himself has the generator ready to keep the sump pump  (and the phone and iPad charged, I have my priorities, too.) running.

This little baby performed well in a test. Hopefully, it will work in a real water situation.

Do you have problems with water in your basement?

1 comment:

  1. We did have trouble once upon a time. We ended up breaking up the floor and installing more drain tile, then putting in a deeper second sump basket.

    Glad that fix worked.

    Glad your new alarm worked too! :)

    ReplyDelete