Whole House Water Monitoring System

So I’m in the initial stages of planning a whole home monitoring system for a cabin I am currently building. I do not have municipal water at the cabin, I will be running off of a cistern (water tank) that will be filled manually by myself. I do have hopes to integrate a rain water collection system in the future, but for mean time the cistern will be filled by manually transporting the water.

I would love to hear ideas that others have to help develop this plan before I start implementing it.

Currently there are 9 sensors/controls that I am looking to incorporate.

  1. Cistern Pump- Power Monitoring & on/off- I would like to see when the pump is running and also turn it off when I am away. I was thinking of using a Shelly 1 with a contactor to do this. For actual power monitoring I plan on using a Shelly EM.

  2. Cistern Depth- I plan on using a Shelly Uni and a water level transducer with a resistor so that the Uni can read the output.

  3. Main Water shutoff- I will have a manual valve, but I will also like an electric main ball valve for the house. I think I can control this with a Shelly Uni but I am open to better ideas.

  4. UV Filter- Power Monitoring & On/Off- I plan on controlling this with a Shelly 1PM.

  5. Water Metering - Since I am not using municipal water I would like to monitor my water usage and also use it to back check the cistern depth. I plan on using a Water meter that pulse for each gallon used and an ESP32. I haven’t used any ESP products and but there seems to be a lot of information out there to incorporate.

  6. Water Line pressure- I plan on using a water pressure transducer and a Shelly Uni.

  7. Hot water Heater- Power Monitoring and On/Off- I plan on using a Shelly 1 with a contactor and a Shelly EM in conjunction with the Cistern pump in the breaker box for power monitoring.

  8. Leak Detection - There is plenty out there for this.

  9. Room Temperature - There is plenty out there to monitor room temperature. But I would like to monitor my utility room to make sure it doesn’t get close to freezing.

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You seem to have it covered fairly well. I will state what I have since it might help.

I have a shared well and a 1100 gal potable water tank for power outages.
My main water supply is a shared well on separate power.
I have a 22KW generator that is more than ample to power everything I have.
I have a 1100gal tank with a shallow well pump that provides water during power outages. I unfortunately loose power frequently and sometimes for days.

I have a Z-wave bulldog valve robot, which operates a manual globe valve. This allows me to manually open and shut the valve if there is ever a failure.

My generator auto starts within a minute of power out.
5 mins after power outage shallow well pump starts; 30 seconds later the valve opens to supply water to the house.
After power is restored after a few mins then valve shuts and 30 sec later pump stops.

Tank is filled downstream of my water softener with a auto fill shut-off valve (with a completely manual valve just before). Tank goes to check valve, pump then anouther check valve then a filter for extra peace of mind. This ties back into downstream of water softener with another check valve to prevent cyclic filling of tank in case the fill valve was left open.

I don’t have a tank level on the water tank yet, I’ve been looking at either contact free capacitive sensors or submersible pressure sensors that can be used to calculate water height. I will tie this level detection into a shutoff for the pump to prevent running the pump dry; this is not that big of a deal, but I do have to re-prime them pump when I run it dry.

I use an ultra sonic sensor to determine level of salt in my brine tank and I calculate percentage of salt and how many 40lb bags are needed to refill.

I use GenMon which publishes the status of my generator via MQTT including state of utility power.

My system works entirely locally and requires no cloud at all.

For the Shelly, I would recommend a PM1 above just a 1 in all cases. The PM1 has power monitoring, which is very handy to verify loads are actually drawing power.

If you are in a area prone to extended freezing temps then you might want to consider either a heater if it is in an insulated room; bare in mind that an incandescent light bulb makes a great heater for small spaces. Another option is to use something akin to a aquarium air pump to pump air into the bottom of the tank and keep it turbulent enough to prevent freezing (Watch the movie Big Miracle 2012 for a great example ~ -40ish F). Yet one more option is to constantly cycle water in the tank, but you will sacrifice some water pressure depending on how you implement. I rarley go below freezing so this is not much of a concern for me; even at a week in the teens 10-17F the tank did not freeze. My tank is not insulated and is outside under my deck and not enclosed; just protect from sun.

I have a filter installed on my tank to allow air in and keep insects out. I have a faucet specifically for emptying the tank without putting the tank on service to my house.

For rain collection make sure you have a waste tank to ensure you don’t get debris into your cistern.

Be aware that UV lights never last that long (at least not in my experience), the PM1 should help you determine some failures if you take baseline readings of what current draw it has.

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