Like any other building, your home or business keeps you safe and warm to work and live. You worry about the things that cause harm or damage to your family or your home. This is why you get alarm systems or insurance.
Shouldn't water control be a concern too?

Water Control is the ability to control the water both on and off, coming into our property. It Is something most of us never think about. Unfortunately because of the costs of the damage that may occur when a water line breaks, we all should, not only think about it but prepare for it. This is especially true if you own a vacation home or business that you only use occasionally.
You might be thinking "But I turn off the water when I am not there". That is great, but what will happen if you forget to turn off the water prior to leaving, of if you are up for the weekend and you are out on the boat for the day? A leak can happen at any time. When it does, if you are not there to turn off the water immediately, there can be some major water damage.
Some interesting facts about water damage.

• Water damage is something that can happen at any time.
  Since your water lines are pressurized, usually 50-70 pounds per square inch. A water line or water hose can burst at any time. 
• It does not take a natural disaster to cause it.
  Water lines can break or leak when nothing happens. The age of materials is the leading cause of failures, but even temperature fluctuations can cause a water hose to leak or burst.
• It can happen to newer and older homes.
  Poor construction or move in damage can cause water line breaks too.
• I have seen water leaks cause damage slowly .
  A cracked water line behind a refrigerator can spray a mist on a wall for years and cause black mold.
• Water damage can run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
• Water damage may not be covered under your homeowners insurance.
  If the water damage is slow and unobserved, most insurance companies do not cover this type of damage.

All of these problems can be mitigated or even eliminated with a properly installed Automated Water Control System.

​Now lets talk about you and your home or business and what to look for and finally how to fix it.
Your Home or Business
The first thing to keep in mind is that all of your water pipes are pressurized and filled with water. Any of these pipes can leak or burst at any time, but the places you are more likely to see a water leak are places like,

• Under your sinks
• Behind your clothes washer
• Behind your refrigerator
• Near your water heater
• Under your jetted bath tub
• In your basement or sub flooring where water pipes or drains are
• Under your dishwasher
• Behind Toilets
• Or any other place there are pipes or soft hoses filled with pressurized water.

Take a stroll around your home or office. Look at these places and think what would happen if a water line broke in these locations and how much it would cost to fix the damage caused, especially if you did not catch the leak for several days.
These are the places you should think of placing the first line of defense in your water shut off strategy. The Water sensor.

These three components comprise a Water Control system.  
You may have a controller already and can easily add the sensors and a valve motor to your existing system to complete your own water control system.

Now that you have your home and water control systems installed you can do some really interesting things with it.
If this is a second / Vacation home and if you do not have a stop waste valve controlling your system, you can program your system to automatically turn off your water when you leave your home and on when you arrive. This will make those weekends at the lake house, easier because you will not have to do it yourself and take the pain out of forgetting to turn it off.
I like to do this with electric locks that are paired to the home controller system.
If you would like to learn more about water control and each of the parts described above, please click on the links 

If you are building a home and are interested in installing a Water Control System in it, I would think about routing your main water supply pipe through a garage wall or some other accessible and dry area and putting a main water shutoff valve in that area maybe in the wall with an accessible cover it for easy access. You will also need a 110V outlet for the power to this motor in this area.
I recommend an accessible area because at one point you might need to replace the valve or motor. It is much easier to do this in an accessible area than it is laying on your back in the dirt under you home.
If you live in a colder climate, you might want to think about installing two of these valves to make a stop and drain (stop and waste) system to automatically drain the water in your pipes to prevent them from freezing and bursting the pipes. One valve to turn off the water and another valve to drain the water from the closed system.

​The benefits of having this system are, the ease of using it manually and if you have it set up as a emergency automatic shutoff system, you will never have to think about it.
With these three devices installed and properly programmed, you will have an extra safety net covering your homes water system and you can rest assured you will probably never have to experience any extensive water damage to your home or business.

We carry these components separately or as a Water Control Kit.

I hope this article informed you on the the benefits of having a water control system in your home or office. If you have any questions, please contact us or ask here.

Hi folks, we finally got our hands on the new Linear GD00Z garage door opener Z-Wave controller.
I remember first seeing this product at the ISC show in Vegas back in April and could not wait to get my hands on it.
Today, we tested this device with our test Veras we have determined that it is not ready for use with the Vera Lite controller.
We do have a tech support ticket open with Vera and we will see if we can get this device working with the Vera controllers.
We will let you know how it goes.

UPDATE 17/July: After 2 phone conferences with Vera's tech support they still can not get the GD00Z to include correctly. This time they recorded logs to dissect by higher tech support .

They said that they think the problem is with the Vera's but until they figure out what is the exact problem is, they can not fix it.

They said they were looking into it and would get back shortly.

Bottom Line, hold off on buying one until we know for sure that if the GD00Z will work with Vera. 

UPDATE 30/July: After an email update request, this email was sent to me today.
"We are adding support for the Linear Garage door opener over the next couple of weeks. 
Our development team is working on adding support for that and once it’s added we will release an update which will allow to work."


I have requested a more accurate date for the availability of this update.
I have also requested if there was anything I can do to our existing Vera's to make the GD00Z work now.

UPDATE 4/Aug: I received a call from Vera today. They said that to use the GD00Z would require you to update to UI7 and it would require a firmware update. They said it should be available within a week.
When asked, "Can I still remain on UI5 and use the GD00Z?" They responded that UI5 would not be supported to make the GD00Z work.

As disappointing as this is, I am on the fence to upgrading to UI7 as some of the app I have installed do not yet work on UI7

As usual I will put any pertinent information this issue here.

UPDATE 27/Aug: On the 25/August,  I called and left a message and sent a reply via the support ticket opened for this problem and as of 6:55 on 27/Aug I have received no reply back.
It has been 7 weeks since I opened this ticket.

Update 30/Aug: I received a call from Vera tech support today. They said they still had no date for the UI7 update that will enable use of the Z-Wave GD00Z with their Vera systems. When questioned about the release date of the update, he told me that he had no date again but it was looking to be at least another month or two.
If you need something now, we do have an easy solution for this problem here.

Update 13/Oct: I sent a request to update this still open ticket and received this response from Vera.

"At the moment the Linear GD00Z-1 can be added on the Vera unit but it won’t work as it uses a a new z-wave command class that’s not yet supported by Vera.
Our development team is working on adding support for that and once it’s added we will release a new firmware which will allow the device to work with Vera.
From what I know the Linear Garage Door Opener should work with the next UI7 release which will be released soon but unfortunately I don’t have an estimated date.
I’m very sorry for the inconvenience."

We now have the new web site live but adding all of the new content is proving to be daunting. Please excuse the mess as I am trying to get the information on our existing products and all of our new products up as quick as possible.
Please call us if you have any questions.
Thank you for your patience.
Jerry Miller / 007