Drip Control: Protect Critical Facilities with Rope Leak Detection

Liquid water, whether dripping from condensation or gushing from broken pipes can easily disrupt critical facilities and cause significant, oftentimes cascading damage. The only way of preventing or minimizing damages caused by leaks is immediate action, which requires continuous monitoring and timely notification. Rope leak detectors provide one of the most reliable methods of leak detection.

How Rope Leak Detection Works

Packet Power’s rope leak sensors continuously monitor a linear sensor (“rope”) for the presence of liquid water. The length of the rope can vary from 3ft/1m to 100ft/33m.

• The rope is laid down around areas that might be subject to leaks. This could include areas under HVAC equipment, liquid cooling systems or around the perimeter of water containers, cold storage facilities or any other equipment that might cause leaks
• The monitor connected to the rope continuously monitors it for the presence of liquid water - if water is detected on the rope, the monitor is also able to detect the position of leak
• When a leak is detected, the monitor forwards an alert to the monitoring system, triggering a notification including the position of the leak
• The monitor also continuously checks the integrity of the rope itself, ensuring that it remains in a working condition; if any disconnection or deterioration is detected, an alert is triggered

Things to Consider When Installing Leak Detectors

• What facilities will be monitored?

For electronic equipment, the less water present, the better. However, for equipment that uses water to function–like HVAC systems, fire suppression systems, or water heaters– it can be critical to monitor for sudden environmental changes.

Manual leak detection is naturally reactive. Staff members periodically check an HVAC drip pan for overflow, or inspect for buildup in crevices behind a water heater. When they find something, it might already be too late.

Rope leak detection sensors can automate this work and provide accurate, real-time data and alerts. Operators can combine these sensors with environmental monitors to measure other water-producing factors, like temperature and humidity. 

• How hard will it be to install?

Leaks often develop in tight, hard-to-reach spaces, behind immovable machines, or old water pipes. Packet Power leak detector ropes can be placed on the floor under or around critical equipment. Multiple ropes can be daisy-chained to achieve the desired length and area coverage..

• How will data be captured and delivered?

Leak monitoring is only valuable as long as the information it captures is delivered in a timely manner. Ability to either directly notify users or interface with already present monitoring systems is critical. In many cases, availability of historical data for post-incident analysis may also be important. Packet Power systems provide direct alert notification capabilities and support all industry-standard 3rd party data interfaces.

• Is it just about leaks or also the environment?

Leaks are oftentimes caused by condensation, which is in turn caused by excessive humidity and/or temperature swings. The only way of truly preventing those leaks is better control over the environment, which in turn requires more precise and timely knowledge of and control over temperature and humidity in order to prevent condensation from occuring in the first place. Packet Power provides a complete line of environmental sensors monitoring temperature, relative humidity and dewpoint. They all operate on the same wireless technology as its leak sensors, thus allowing monitoring coverage to be easily extended as necessary.

For more help with choosing a leak detection monitoring sensor, contact our team and we’ll figure out the best solution for you.