January 2023 - Win a smart plug or flex sensors!

Hey everyone!

We’re looking for new, unique stories on how you have saved with Sense. Starting today through Feb 1, we will be selecting 10 stories to be featured on our main Sense Saves site. If chosen, you will have the option to choose from a free smart plug or free flex sensors. Leave your submissions below this thread!

If you have already left a story under our “Share your Sense stories” category in the past 6 months, there’s no need to repost here. I will be taking a look at them.

My house has a pump as part of the septic system, which runs a few times a day. I set an alert for Sense to let me know if the pump is off for two days. One time it let me know the pump hadn’t run, and I went to check - one of the pump’s circuit breakers had tripped! That also prevented the tank full alarm from sounding, so Sense saved me from a messy and expensive sewage backup!

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Was able to identify a HVAC problem with the flame detector on Christmas Day. Being able to see the wattage signature, allowed ability to see multiple restarts by the system over a couple of weeks that was getting progressively worse. After a quick and simple fix, we had heat on Christmas and saved an expensive service call.

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Using the Meter view in Sense, I was able to determine that my heat pump compressor had seized up, but was still trying to run every 3 minutes. It was pulling about 8kW for several hours during the early morning, so luckily I was able to turn off the hvac system and stop wasting electricity.

Sense also helped me discover when a technician pinched a wire under an access panel, which started to chaff and caused a short to ground. The waveform on the meter showed a very weird, odd spike that corresponded to the (old) heat pump trying to run.
https://community.sense.com/t/motor-stall-heat-pump-fan/11550?u=edison517

Pretty awesome that Sense can “tell” me I’m having electrical issues!

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Thank you @kynan, @gene.daniell, and @Edison517 for your submissions! We would like to offer all three of you a smart plug or a set of flex sensors (your choice).

I’ll be sending each of you a PM shortly!

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You may want to have your tech check your breaker to make sure it’s the correct size for your unit. 8,000w is more than 33amps. Most compressors are require a maximum 15,20 or 30amp breaker… seeing 30amp on 5ton is the norm now. This should flip when your compressor locks up. Yours was not and having the thermal overload protector was flipping then when it cooled down around 3-5 mins later, it re-engaged… again and again.

Max breaker/ max overload protection or something along those words should be on the main label on your outdoor unit.

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I used Sense with a Smart PLug to identify issues with a failing refrigerator and was able to fix it. Here’s the details

One fine morning, we noticed that the refrigerator was not as cold, but since cold is a relative concept, I ignored it as the refrigerator was cool. The next morning, I noticed that there was water on the floor, and refrigerator would powered-on, but wasn’t using the same power as earlier. So about 12-15 W less, I checked and my fan was broken, I was able to get a replacement fan and get the refrigerator working in less than 48 hours.

A couple weeks later, I had a similar issue, and just looking into the consumption patterns, I can was able to confirm that something else was an issue, and we had a technician confirm that the main-board went-bad when the fan was broken and was over-heating the back of the refrigerator.

I now have a smart-plug on each refrigerator ( kitchen, wine and garage) and whil egoing on vacation was able to set-up alerts based on ‘On - Off’ time ( I had to threshold the standby to ON first) and was alerted if there was an issue, and could ask a friend to check if there was an immediate need, while I was out of town.

I also had to tweak the alert threshold, as the system went from ON/OFF every 45 minutes when in use to every 75 mins, when we were not in town.

The peace of mind when being out of town is priceless

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