Look for advice for sump pump project

A socket with power monitoring would work. let us know what country you’re in and we can suggest some devices.

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I am in the us it would need to be small as power oulet is on the bottom of the floor

This may work

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I’d NEVER put a device on anything that could be mission critical. I’ve seen way to many random “on” and “off” happen.

What if the device turned off during heavy rain? Monitor with another device, but not allow on/off.

Personally, I would find a different approach than sump pumps if possible.
IF your yard has the space, then dig drainage channels!

I had floods in my basement after I bought this house. (Pr$ck doctor who sold it to me told me “no, we’ve never had a flood” despite the clear evidence of it on the basement floors.) Anyway, the water would come in the basement windows during every significant rain storm. A couple of advisors said I had to install a system of sump pumps…

But I looked at the property itself.

I ordered a few yards of soil, some hard-flex perforated pipe, some gravel… and began digging. The two windows that were leaking? My drainage channel ran past them, and the land was re-graded so the water in the yard flowed away from them and into the gravel-covered perforated pipe. Within a few years, grass overgrew the gravel. Now my yard drains correctly, and there has been no water in the basement since I did that digging.

Far better solution than relying on pumps.

Agree - but in many, many locations, not remotely possible.

I have about 3’ drop from the front of the house150’ to the storm sewer. I need 8’ of lift to get to the driveway, so I would need a to bury 9-10’ at the house, and would still be about 4-6’ too low at the storm sewer.

Works fine fir those a street over - drains right into my back yard :slight_smile:

I guess you could get an aeotec power monitor and put a clamp around the power cable to monitor power used while still plugging the pump directly into outlet. Or you could use two water detectors (with extensions) to monitor when the water goes below the level after the pump runs and one above where it should have kicked on. Trying to figure this out myself before I venture into my crawl…

On top of the power meter on the pump itself, I have a water sensor with a remote wire hanging into the sump pit. That way if it ever rises beyond normal level I get an alert before it overflows.

You can’t just clamp around the wire, it would read zero, either need to jerry-rig a split to get one side, or there are a few “things” available that do this, used for amp testing. (no quick source).

IMHO - good idea, or do it for that circuit in the box.

is this a good choice for a water sensor

I have the Aeotec and every now and then will get a false alert. The fibaro unit has been my most reliable and has terminals for a remote wire. Also have a Dome/Neo Coolcam sensor that has a remote sensor, but have only had it a week, so can’t comment on how reliable it is yet.

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do you have a link for the fibaro unit?
i have two question 1. are there any energy monitoring plug with out on/off
is there a water sensor that is powered ?
thanks

The fibaro unit can be powered by a wall adapter. I don’t know of an energy monitoring plug without on/off. You could create a custom device handler and remove the switch capability from it, though.

Here is the Aeon Home Energy Monitor. I had one on my sump circuit breaker wire at previous house.

This is the device to split the AC wires if you can’t get it in circuit breaker.

If you don’t have battery backup, I highly recommend that for at least one of your pumps too.

Once you get all that set up, you could use WebCore to monitor the data and send alerts…
-if pump stays on for longer than X seconds (my float use to stick on occasionally)
-if pump doesn’t run at all for X hours (circuit breaker, broke, etc)
-count how many cycles per hour and chart it

I was obsessed with tracking my pump for a while :blush:

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Hi kevin,

i was looking at the Aeon Labs AEDSB09104ZWUS Aeotec Z-Wave Smart Energy Monitor Meter
it goes on the main power wires so how did you known when pump comes on?
thanks beau

You can use it on individual circuits as well. I have 3 HEMs (as they are known here), but haven’t gotten them installed in my new home yet. At previous house, I had one on the mains and actually looked at the energy usage… #2 was split (one side washer, one side dryer)…#3 was split (one side for sump, one for???). For #2 and 3 I didn’t really care about the energy usage, just let me know when the pump/appliance were on.

I think this the Device Handler I used:

Here are some discussions on the HEM installs…

Word of caution if you are not familiar with electrical panels you should probably have an electrician do this. Your mains cannot be turned off inside and they are live and exposed inside the electrical panel.

Not sure if this was directed to me, but I am an Electrician, and in building automation for 32 years, now retired.

Sorry, no, the forum must have notified you because I linked to your clean HEM install pictures :slight_smile:

Not a problem, but your quote hits the point. People should stay out of their electrical panel unless they know what they are doing.

ok so one hem could do 2 sump pump?