Thou Shalt Protect Thy Home!

I pose this question to you to start today’s topic. What is the biggest purchase most of us will ever make in our lives? Outside of the ultra rich, I think it is safe to say that purchase will be your home.

Now, once you buy the home one of the very first things that must happen and often before you close on the house you need to have an insurance policy in place, right? Again, unless you are a cash buyer, you will have a mortgage on the home and the bank wants to make sure that they get their money in the event of something catastrophic. What if there was a way to possibly prevent the disaster before it happens?

Today we are going to explore ways to protect your home, your biggest investment, from things like water damage and AC breakdowns and please remember I am not making up the names of the products. The company I’m featuring in this post is called Alert Labs and they offer a suite of products designed to protect your home from water damage along with ways to be more in control of your homes air conditioning system. Let’s start with The Floodie… (I told you!!)

The Floodie is a sensor that can be placed anywhere in the home where the possibility of water damage exists. You can place them by the water heater, washing machine, under sinks, behind vanities pretty much anywhere. They are very compact and they have a cable that extends three feet for better coverage. They run on two AA batteries that typically last around two years. So, what happens when The Floodie gets wet is it sends an alert to you via text and email that there is water somewhere there should not be. It also sends a signal to our next device called (wait for it) The Shutie.

The Shutie does exactly what you think it would, it shuts the water off to your home at the main point of entry. This happens within seconds of receiving the signal from The Floodie, so say your water heater has burst – the mess will be contained to just the amount of water in the tank and the small amount within the pipes of the home. By shutting the water off at the source we have prevented hundreds if not thousands of gallons of water from entering your home. The Shutie is mounted outside on the main valve; also battery operated so even if the power is out when disaster strikes you are protected. Next up is The Flowie.

The Flowie is a device mounted on the water meter outside of your home and monitors the flow of water being used. It will learn your water usage patterns and in the event something abnormal is detected you will be sent an alert. This is useful when it comes to leaks under the home or between the house and the water meter. Many times, if you have an underground leak it can go undetected for days sometimes even weeks at a time until you get a water bill that is 5 times what it usually is. The best part of combining these three devices and installing them on your home? It is highly likely you will get a discount on your homeowner’s insurance policy. Lastly in our line of funky named stuff we have The Sentree.

The Sentree is a cellular device that is connected to your air conditioning system to monitor its function 24/7. Again if anything out of the ordinary is detected, alerts are sent. There is also a live dashboard that allows you to see the system performance and with your permission we can also monitor your system. How nice would it be to be able to know that your air conditioning unit is about to break vs. waiting until the unit is broken to know? This device is also perfect for people who travel a lot or have multiple homes. Again, please don’t blame me for the names of these products, I somehow think there was either small children or alcohol involved when they were picking names; however funny they are, what they do is no joke and this suite of products can save you thousands of dollars and tons of grief and aggravation.

Until I see you again my friends my buddy walks over to me and asks if he can have some H2O4. I said H2O4? What’s the 4? He said H2O is four drinking……….

House Whisperer out!!