Category: Faulty Device

Got a “new high energy use” alert – took a look at the app and saw 6,000 watts more use than typical. Made no sense. Went through the house looking for anything and none of the usual suspects were on….

Then I went outside and saw some droplets of water splashing over the gutter (it was a clear day).

Sure enough, the rooftop water heater had sprung a leak, causing our water pumps to run non stop and the electric water heater to try and keep up. Shutting off the water immediately stopped the leak and the energy use.

I honestly don’t know how long it would have taken to notice this leak… could have been days or even weeks – instead, it was 30 minutes start to finish.

I was notified of an increase in day to day usage by Sense. I called up the offending device and saw it was my well pump. Went to the basement, and sure enough, it was cycling on for 2 minutes, off for 30 seconds, over and over. The high cycle rate is indicative of a failed pressure tank bladder. A quick test showed that to be the case, so off to the local hardware store for a new tank. Installed and working. Because of Sense, I was able to quickly catch a problem that could have resulted in a well pump burnout, which tends to get expensive to replace. Thanks Sense!!

Recently my fridge in kitchen, pond fountain pump has been noisy

Along with few other strange things going with lighting.

I noticed on my sense monitor a voltage imbalances between L1 and L2 of up to 30 volts at times

Sense has helped identify needed maintenance on our fridge including cleaning near the compressor.

If cleaning the fridge does not improve the its behavior, it may be time to replace. We could not have (easily) determined this without Sense.

My whole house attic fan has a three way switch in the house. In the late fall I cover the fan with an insulation blanket to keep heat from escaping from the house into the attic.
As a safety device, I installed an on/off switch in the attic as well.
This year I failed to toggle it to the off position.
Sometime this winter the switch in the hall got toggled to high speed. The blanket was keeping the fan from spinning.

My sense monitor was off-line because of powerwall installation. Around the same time I had to replace the well pump (Yes, it was an expensive month!)

After weeks offline, I finally reinstalled my sense monitor and I can see a weird appliance coming on every 30 seconds for 1 second at about 1kw, days and night.

After investigating, it turns out the check valve on my pump is broken and the pump runs constantly to keep up the pressure. Very happy to have found it, the wear on the pump would have killed it much sooner than expected, and the early fix is only a $20 part!

After some heavy rains I woke to a flooded basement. I got out the pump, dried everything out, next rain, same problem. Called out a waterproofing company and got a quote for $6200 to keep it dry. Then the bad news. I’d have to fix the collapsing wall first. The wet dirt had caused a basement wall to crack. There is an expense! Called out a foundation specialist, said the wet soil needed to be fixed. Called in a grading company to help divert water away from the house, but it was too muddy, they would check back in a few weeks. So, I was playing with my sense and realized my well pump was coming on every 2 minutes. Looking back almost 3 months, it was only coming on about 40 times a day. As you guessed, the soggy part of my yard was where the water line ran from my pump house to my basement. Replaced the water line, a week later the yard dried up and the basement never leaked again. Ended up costing $2200 for a simple basement wall repair, but could have been much worse and more expensive. My pump is now back to running only a fraction of what it was.