Yep, I wasn’t trying to say that my installation was better by any means, In my house I plan on doing the@CheezWizdrawing above. as it looks like a better installation with minimal additional effort and cost.
I was only pointing out what the Bare minimum to bypass the valve And keep water flowing to the home in case of an emergency failure of the smartvalve. In the drawing I posted you would still have the main to shut off whenever you wanted to service the smart valve at a controlled point in time I.E. wife went to work, kids at school.
Of course if you ever run into this point where you have to bypass then wait for a convenient time to service, you would likely add the other ball valve so you don’t have to mess with waiting for a ‘convenient’ time like that again!
I feel like this might be a dead horse but I’m actually confused on how your bypass works @cheezwiz. In your drawing there appears to be a dumb valve between your T and the leaksmart. In the picture the valve (your original yellow dumb valve) is before the T. Thus if that is open and you take out the leakSmart won’t you have water just trying to go up out of the pipe? What force is there that will redirect it horizontally through the T? Then in the top of the drawing the top most valve is below the top T which presumably keeps water from falling out the space vacated by the removed leaksmart. However in the picture the top most valve appears above the T thus even if open, won’t water want to fall down into the piping of the removed Leak Smart?
“In the photo, the yellow handled valve is my original dumb valve.
Were I to do it over again, I would have put the top T above the dumb valve and the bottom T below the dumb valve. That way I could have had the smart valve completely removed but still had water… I am new to this so that is my excuse for not thinking of it that way to begin with. But this will suffice in the event the smart-valve fails in the closed position, or decides to behave in an erratic manner.”
All I have in my actual install is a bypass that will easily allow water to run if the leaksmart fails closed. Having the ball valve above the leaksmart allows me to turn off all water and service the valve with no backflow from the house. That is all I was originally going for.
Just an FYI for anyone going the soldering route that I did, unions are the only way to attach the Leaksmart and be able to service it later without desoldering. They require A LOT of torque to stop leaks. the one on top was a high dollar job from Amazon( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003OYJGOU ) that worked really well, the bottom one was a cheap one from Lowes that I had to polish and then tighten with two gigantic monkey wrenches before it finally stopped leaking. Using SharkBites might be the better option and then solder everywhere else. My understanding is that at some point, the Sharkbites will leak due to seal deterioration, but I think that is ten+ years later. I would certainly hate to lose one of those fittings at the supply side of the Leaksmart and flood my basement.
To your point, soldering or mechanical joints (like unions), are always best. But, as long as you are using branded push fit products (like Sharkbites) and you prep the piping properly, you should be good for 25+ years. I know many professional plumbers who have switched to these for R&R jobs where soldering is difficult (due to space constraints or water in the lines). You can also turn the Sharkbites like a union and actually unscrew the valve if need be (or just use the removal tool). Coincidentally, I just met with a number of the Sharkbite product guys at the Kitchen & Bath Show in Vegas.
Some of the off-brand push fittings get a little scary though.
Yeah, I would not use anything but Sharkbites if I were to use any. I have been told that the brand Lowes sells are terrible.
I have a selection of 3/4" sharkbites fittings on hand to use for emergency repairs if need be. The quality difference between them and the ones at Lowes is obvious.
I have used ‘sharkbites’, but I’m not actually sure if that was the brand, or just the general product type I used when the HD guy pointed me to them when it came time to do my own gas water heater replacement last year.
I will look at my water heater ones closely to see if I can see any branding on them, and if not, I’ll check on the brand at HD.
I’ve been trying to pair the leaksmart valve for about the last 2 hours – to no avail. I’ve tried everything from rebooting my hub, being closer to my hub, repairing my network, attempting to “exclude” device (unsucessfully), etc. Any ideas on this? I’m at a loss.
Cory, Make sure you do not have batteries installed yet. Take the control part and the power brick to your hub and start pairing mode on the hub and then plug in your leaksmart. That is how I did it. It went into pairing mode as soon as power was applied.
After rebooting my hub, unplugging my valve, and plugging it back in, I got it to pair. Thanks! I did change the device type after pairing from smart outlet to zig bee valve. Thanks!!
And, here it is. For others thinking about doing this, if you use Shark Bit fittings (see attached photo), it’s a pretty straightforward DIY plumbing job too. My first plumbing job, so if I can do it, anyone can. You only need 3 Shark Bite fittings: one male threaded (attached to valve), one female threaded (attached to valve) and one “slip” coupling (to give you the space to connect existing pipe). No soldering required! Easy peasy. I will note that with your plumber’s tape on the threaded shark bite fittings, you REALLY have to crank the fittings type to ensure leak tightness.
I’ll also note I didn’t bother with the bypass line that some have installed. As you see, if for some reason the valve fails open, I have the manual gate valve upstream. And, if the valve fails shut (unlikely), you can always just unscrew the four screws on valve body and manually turn the gear to re-open. One nice thing about the Shark Bite fittings is that you can also remove them with the special tool provided with the fittings (in case you have an issue with your valve and need to replace it, for instance).
Good luck! I’ve had water damage in previous homes, and am super psyched about this nifty device. WAY cheaper than Fortrezz. I paid $160 for the valve through Lowe’s. I don’t remember what the fittings cost, but not much in comparison.
@johnconstantelo Your code for the ZigBee valve device appears to be gone on your repository. Is there anyway we could get that back? I’m interested in using your device type.
I remember why I deleted it. Even though I don;t have one of these valves, I created a new version to use ST’s new tile formatting. This should work for you:
Hi @reid_crowe, all the configure tile does is ensure the right parameters are set, and log a message. There’s nothing in the phone app you’ll see.
Is the device handler working to control the valve? If not, please watch the live logs and capture what you can. I used ST’s base code from their Zigbee Valve device handler, so it should work.
