There actually are ones for houses; the valve goes to the main feed line of the building, and then there's a network of water sensors that go around the house. If any go off, the water feed gets shut off. These are the ones that Home Depot and Lowes and so forth carry, and they're pretty pricey. FloodStop makes cheapo ones to go right next to an appliance: they have a model for washer/dryer, one for water heaters, and one for ice makers.
What happened in our case was apparently that the water level sensor in the washer failed to sense the water level, and it never knew it had filled, so it kept filling more... According to the Sears maintenance guy it's not all that unusual that components, relays and sensors in washers have occasional one-off malfunctions. He couldn't tell whether it was the washer solenoid, the timer that's supposed to get triggered by the water level sensor, or the water level sensor itself that was on a fritz, and replacing any of them was ludicriously expensive, so we stuck with letting it be and seeing if it will misbehave again. I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist. If I designed a washer, it'd have a few more safeguards or backup systems!
Hm. Washing machine dance. That could be a hit. Need video footage for the net, and catchy music to go with it!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-12-09 02:31 pm (UTC)What happened in our case was apparently that the water level sensor in the washer failed to sense the water level, and it never knew it had filled, so it kept filling more... According to the Sears maintenance guy it's not all that unusual that components, relays and sensors in washers have occasional one-off malfunctions. He couldn't tell whether it was the washer solenoid, the timer that's supposed to get triggered by the water level sensor, or the water level sensor itself that was on a fritz, and replacing any of them was ludicriously expensive, so we stuck with letting it be and seeing if it will misbehave again. I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist. If I designed a washer, it'd have a few more safeguards or backup systems!
Hm. Washing machine dance. That could be a hit. Need video footage for the net, and catchy music to go with it!