Sense Saves (Again!)

Share your Sense stories
1

Wanted to pass along a repeated “Thank You” to the Sense team!!

To offer some history, I have two hot water tanks in my home - one for my household hot water, and one for an in-floor heating system. Christmas 2019, my household water heater quit. It was obsolete, so I had to replace the water heater outright.

But this started me wondering about the in-floor heating. If it were to quit, I couldn’t rely on a cold shower to tell me…and, in a Canadian climate, I definitely wouldn’t want to find out because a line froze and split, potentially cracking the foundation.

So I ordered a Kasa smart plug for the remaining water tank, integrated it into Sense, and added a notification in the event that the water heater did not turn on within 8 hours.

That notification came Tuesday evening at 10:30pm. Checking the water tank, it was throwing a code for a failed temperature sensor, but because it was caught so quickly, the water in the tank was still just above 140°F.

Checking the temperature sensors - they were fine, (suggesting a failed electronic control board). This allowed me to contact the local plumbing supplier the following day, source a replacement controller, and replace it without the hydronic lines dropping below 75°F.

THANK YOU SENSE!!

6 Likes
2

@ac.mackenzie11 which specific Kada smart plug did you use with your floor water tank heater?

I thought that smart plugs were only for plugged devices, not directly connected devices like a water tank.

3

@NorthMan I have a Bradford White Power Vented, Natural Gas Water heater (M/N M1TW50), supplying warm water to the in-floor plumbing…so I used a Kasa HS-110 to monitor it.

The Honeywell gas controller on the tank uses 1W when idle, and approx 155W when the heater is running.

Hope this helps!

4

Thanks @ac.mackenzie11 for the info. I did not think about a gas water heater :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Being in a province where electricity is cheap, gas water heaters are not popular!

My hydronic water boiler is electric with 4 stages of 5 000W each for a total maximum of 20 000 W. Sense did not detected it yet.

I was refering to this type of water heater when I wrote being surprised that any Kasa plug would handle this!

1 Like