Water Leak Sensor Failures And Identifying Responsible Parties In These Claims
Was the water sensor installed in accordance with the equipment manufacturer’s specifications?
Was the water sensor properly located?
What was the installed mounting height of each of the water sensors that were found to be located in the premises?
Was the water sensor properly programmed so that it is not controlled by the burglar alarm system?
These are just some of the things that need to be forensically investigated when there is a water loss at an insured’s location and the system fails to detect the water, and/or fails to notify the Central Station.
It is also important to request Central Station records to determine the dispatch and notification instructions for the subscriber’s account, as well as whether there are any special instructions. Log only, and no action instruction information should also be requested.
Finally, it is important to verify that the water detection system was properly tested on-site and at the Central Station. Generally, the alarm contractor has a duty to properly recommend, design, install, program, inspect, test, and monitor the water sensors that it installed in the home or business. To the extent that the alarm contractor breaches its duty and is the proximate cause of the damage sustained, it can be a responsible party. Alarm contractors have a duty to know that a water leak detection system must work reliably, given the foreseeable risks of catastrophic consequences when these systems fail to perform their intended function during a water leak emergency.
How does an alarm system contractor design and install an alarm system with water sensors? The first step is to learn whether the home has had past water leaks, what happened and/or did not happen, where the water came from, and whether the water leak problem was permanently fixed.
Finally, what can be installed now to reliably detect a subsequent water leak? Unfortunately, many in the alarm industry use a one-size-fits-all approach, whereby it is common to see verbiage like: “Install one water sensor in the best location.” Is there a best location for a water sensor? Sure, there is; if you could determine where the water leak is going to happen, you would place the sensor in that location.
Realistically, no one knows where a water leak will occur or when it will happen, so these types of representations are guesswork at best. In this commonly found fact pattern, despite the premises having a central station monitored alarm system with water sensors, it never activates during the water leak in the home. A common reason for the failure of water sensors to operate as intended is due to the inherent limitations of these particular types of sensors. First, water sensors have no range. Yes, no range, so where these sensors are located is mission-critical.
In other words, if the water does not reach the sensors at their installed locations, the sensors will not be activated. With this in mind, each installed location of a water sensor(s) has to be based upon on the proper survey of the home or business. Additionally, not having enough water sensors installed throughout the home and in the proper locations is yet another reason why water was not detected by the system during a water leak event. Equally important is the mounting height of the water sensor, so that it is likely to detect the water and trigger the alarm system.
Given that, the equipment manufacturer’s specifications of the water sensor must be adhered to by the alarm system installer, and the zone type that is programmed into the system for each water sensor is also very important. Simplified, all water sensors must be programmed as 24-hour zones, because no one can predict when and where a water leak will happen in a home, and if the burglar alarm system is disarmed and the water sensor zones are not programmed as a 24-hour zone, the water detection part of the system will not function as intended.
Against the foregoing backdrop, in many forensic investigations, I have determined that the only reason the water sensor zones did not activate was that they were not properly programmed on a 24-hour zone of the system. Resultantly, the water leak is not detected by the alarm system because these sensors will not perform their intended function unless the burglar alarm system is armed, which grossly deviates from the standard of care. When programmed as a 24-hour zone, the armed or disarmed status of the rest of the system will not negatively impact upon the performance of the water leak detection system.
The determination of how the zone(s) are programmed and will operate is controlled by the alarm contractor in the internal programming of the control unit. Meanwhile, since time is the most important commodity when it comes to trying to minimize water damage in a home or office, the sooner the water leak is detected by the system, the more likely it is that the damage sustained can be significantly minimized.
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