You need a leak detector

It used to be that whenever I left my house for more than a night, I would make sure to turn off the water in each toilet. I was always worried that some part of the toilet might leak. During my visits to colleges around Texas for my children, I managed to break this habit for the short weekend trips.

After one such trip, we returned home and unloaded the car as usual. Everything seemed fine at first. However, a couple of hours later, my wife noticed water on the floor in the power room. When I checked, I discovered that the hose connecting the toilet to the bottom was slowly leaking water. My wife quickly dried up the water, and I replaced the hose with a new one.

As I inspected the powder room, I noticed that water had seeped under the wooden floors and into the closet, my office, and the main hallway. It turned out that this slow leak had caused $40,000 in damage due to the amount of wood flooring, baseboards, and drywall that needed to be replaced!

I wish I had discovered YoLink sensors before that accident. In the past, I had internet-connected leak detectors by the washer and hot water heater, but the cost of them deterred me from installing them in all potential leak-prone areas. Fortunately, the price of YoLink Leak Sensors has decreased significantly, making it feasible for me to install them throughout the house. I have already benefited from having these under bathroom sinks and had one doing a slow drip that would have gone unseen for a while in an upstairs bathroom. I even had another toilet one start alerting around 2am in my son's bathroom. When I finally was awake enough to understand what was going on, I ran upstairs. I could not see a leak but the sensor was wet. It turns out that my son does not have great aim when he uses the bathroom half asleep. 🙁

Apart from the low cost of the sensors, the YoLink system utilizes a low-power communication protocol called LoRa. This allows the sensors to operate on a couple of AA batteries, providing them with a long operational life. However, this requires a hub, which YoLink offers as part of a starter pack that includes the hub and several leak sensors. YoLink has a lot of other sensors from outdoor gate sensors, to pool temperature sensors (I own both). I have really been thinking about getting the automated water valve for the house.

While YoLink has its own app, it may not be the most visually appealing. On the positive side, the sensors integrate seamlessly with most smart home platforms. Although it lacks native Apple HomeKit support, it was easy to integrate into HomeKit using HomeBridge and this plugin.

*Please note that I do receive a small commission on any purchases that you might make from the links to Amazon in this article.