Leak Frog LF001 Water Alarm
by LEAK Frog
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Our Price: $14.90 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $12.99 (click here) Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Leak Frog LF001 Water Alarm
Customer Review: Leak Frog Saved Us!
Summary: 5 Stars
LEAK Frog LF001 Water Alarm
Just three weeks before Christmas disaster struck. Our humidifier system failed and flooded our first floor utility room and dining room. We dreaded the amount of work and aggravation that lay ahead of us (we had gone through a similar crisis just 2 1/2 years before when our water heater died and we knew what we were in for). Moving heavy dining room furniture, pulling up wet rugs, ripping out soaked padding, baseboards, sheetrock walls and fiberglass insulation, days of drying everything out with industrial dehumidifiers and fans, then repairing, replacing, painting, and moving all the furniture back in place we got the house together just two days before Christmas. I decided then and there this will never happen to us again. I went to Amazon.com, did my research, read the reviews and decided to order the Leak Frog LF001 Water Alarm. I received the Leak Frog just in time to wrap him up as a Christmas gift for my wife. The minute she unwrapped him she told me to put him right to work in the Utility room which has caused us so much grief. Well not three days later, we were just about to leave the house through the garage and we heard it. You guessed it, our little Leak Frog was sounding the alarm. The humidifier system had failed again! The difference this time was we were able to stop the problem just as it was starting. I was able to shut off the water feed to the humidifier system until the plumber came to make repairs. Just a small amount of water on the floor set this little guy off and it dried up within an hour. Little Leaky saved us! Saved our house, our belongings and our sanity. I know we would have lost it if we had to go through another flood just days after getting the house back together. Well we've bought five more Leak Frogs since then and put them to work all over the house. In all the bathrooms under sinks and toilets, in the laundry room, and the kitchen. Don't let the cuteness factor of these little frogs fool you. They really work. They are extremely sensitive to even small amounts of water. The alarm sound while not blaring is still plenty loud to hear throughout the house when there is trouble. We are sleeping much better now knowing our little army of Leak Frogs is on the job.
Customer Review: It's not just for basements
Summary: 5 Stars
I had read about these on different online forums for a while, and recently picked up three--two are at home, and one was for a family that has slow drain problems in their basement. We originally planned to keep only one, but found out, unexpectedly, that they were valuable in places other than the kitchen.
To try it out, I took it to the bathroom, placed it on the counter, and spilled a little water near it. As soon as the water reached one edge (thanks to the wonder of liquid cohesion--I'm glad I remembered that one from 4th grade science), it seeped aound to the other side and the beeping began.
No, it was not as loud as a smoke detector, but it was lound enough to hear from a couple of rooms away (as evidenced when my wife and kids came to find out what was making the noise). I dried off the Leak Frog and the counter, set it down, and made my way into the kitchen. To make a long story short, the leak from helped alert me when some of my younger kids were making a mess trying to wash up, and then there was our youngest daughter who decided to try to fill her tea set when she was supposed to be going to bed. After about the third set of beeps that helped us catch some mischief before it became a big, wet mess, we decuded that the cute, little Leak Frog would have a long-term home on our bathroom counter.
After our initial experiences, we've decided to grow our Leak Frog family. Once will stay on the bathroom counter, one will reside near our floor drain in the basement, and we plan to get a couple more for the areas where our pets are fed (the water dishes tend to get spilled far too often). If you ever drive through a town and come across a house that is beeping like it's full of a chorus of Leak Frogs, it might mean you found our house, and I'd expect you to find us bailing and sandbagging).
BTW--they float once the water gets high enough!
Customer Review: GordonWatson
Summary: 5 Stars
Leak Frog is a clever water leak detector I have owned for about a year. I have placed it beside our shower/tub where it has already notified, me (during showing) that I have gotten our hardwood floor there a little too wet. Basically, water leak detectors are like home smoke detectors except that they alarm with water leaks rather than fire. It takes very little water (maybe 1/16" inch below them) to activate. We have lots of hardwood floors, and have gone through the pain of having portions of them destroyed by a leaking refrigerator water line, so I have become a water-leak-detector geek. While I am not sure that the product will make competitors green with envy, the packaging and price caught my eye at my local hardware store. I paid less than $10 for it. Time will tell whether the Leak Frog has the quality of its primary competitor, Zircon, but so far, I have not been disappointed. If Leak Frog has a few downsides, they are its relatively high profile (might not fit under refrigerators or other areas which are sometimes a tight squeeze), and Ziron uses 9 volt batteries which seem simpler than the three AAA cells used by the Leak Frog. I have no idea how long the batteries last, and that will be important. The Zircon 9 volt battery lasts literally for years. I also wonder why they would bother putting a button on the Leak Frog to test it. Wetting ones fingers and touching the two metal water detection contactors works and seems to be a more direct test. Despite a few uncertainties, from a cleverness of name and appearance view, Leak Frog seems to have a jump on the competition!Customer Review: saved my house
Summary: 5 Stars
These little guys easily saved us a minimum of $20k in house damage, possibly much much more. Yesterday morning, the city sewage lines backed up during a record-setting storm, and started shooting water up out of the 4in side sewer into my below-grade garage and basement. The raw water quickly rose to floor level... and the LeakFrogs went off in the garage and back steps. I woke like a shot, figured out what was going on, called the city, and fired up the emergency sump (designed for runoff, not sewage, but better than nothing...). The Seattle city water guys (straight outta the movie 'Brazil') came quickly and unplugged a clogged 6-ft-dia sewer main down the street, after which the water level dropped and drained back out of the house quickly.
Early warning made all the difference. If it hadn't been for the LeakFrogs, our first warning of the flood might have been 20-40min later, at 24in-deep-water when it reached the top of the kids' beds, or 30in-deep when it shorted out the main breaker box. Today I had to pull out a lot of ruined carpet and stained items from 2-5in of water, but many of my downstream neighbors had 3-5ft deep water, with massive damage ranging from destroyed furnaces to lost walls/total reno situations. Not bad for a little green plastic bump. I bought a three-pack of leakfrogs a couple of years ago, and tho they could be a little louder, this xmas I'm going to give one to everyone I know.
Customer Review: You never know how great it is until it works.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had one of these for well over a year. Originally put it in my basement next to the water heater. We had had problems with water in the past (water softener issues, some rain seepage, etc) but we managed to repair those problems. Never heard anything from my little Leakfrog until a couple of nights ago.
In the middle of the night, I heard beeping coming from somewhere. It was enough to wake both me and my dog. Mind you, my bedroom is on the second floor, and the Leakfrog is in the basement. So it's plenty loud.
Finally figured out that it was the Leakfrog coming from the basement. The flexible water line going from the water supply to the water heater had started leaking. I doubt it had been leaking for more than an hour or so; there was only a small wet spot on the floor. So I shut off the valve to the heater and went back to bed. 10 hours and $10 in replacement parts later, it was fixed. Mind you, in those 10 hours, the water on the floor had completely dried, that's how little water it took to activate the alarm.
Had I not had the Leakfrog, it could have been weeks (and possibly causing substantial damage to the water heater or other items in the basement) before I would have noticed the leak. I highly recommend this for anyone that has a potential for leakage that could possibly go unnoticed.