Best water shut-off valve for HA integration?

Hardware
1

I have a number of leak sensors (Z-Wave) throughout the house and I’m looking for a motorized shut-off valve that integrates with Home Assistant so that I can have the main water supply shut off if a leak is detected.

I purchased a gen1 LeakSmart valve for a pretty good price, and I was hoping I could integrate it with the Zigbee Home Automation component, but it’s not pairing. I know I could pair it to my old SmartThings hub or get a cheap Wink hub, but I’d really like something that connects directly to Home Assistant - I dumped SmartThings because of the crappy cloud reliability.

Would I have better luck with one of the Z-Wave valves, or is there another platform that integrates well and is reliable?

Thanks!

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I use a simple auto-off valve from Amazon with a z-wave outlet. This works well as most of the speciality valves are overpriced and not so reliable.

The valve itself is like $60 or so on Amazon.

2 Likes
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How does this work if a hot pipe leaks? A hot water cylinder will drain even with the mains off.

4

Put one between hot water tanks and house…

5

Yes.

Do people have this sort of leak problem regularly? Apart from leaving my socks in the sink that the washing machine empties into, I have never had a leak or flood, even after severe earthquakes.

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Interesting, I didn’t even think about a “dumb” valve with a smart outlet… :man_facepalming:

I couldn’t find anything on that Amazon page confirming it’s safe for potable water, but I think I would prefer a valve that only uses power to open/close the valve. I’m not sure how a z-wave outlet would control it then though. Maybe I could one of the low-voltage z-wave relays.

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I’m my case we have an on-demand water heater, so if the main is off only the water already in the pipes would be an issue - much better than full city water pressure.

Two days ago we discovered that the fill valve in one of our toilets had failed, so it was basically just pumping water down the drain. The shutoff valve for that toilet also failed, so the only way to stop the water and repair the valve was shut off the house water. If we had a controllable valve, we could have left the water off and only turned it on when we needed it, so I wouldn’t have had to spend the morning of my birthday yesterday fixing the toilet. :laughing: So for us it has uses beyond just a split pipe.