We live in a two story house which has a water tank on the top. There is a toilet like gizmo to stop fill to the tank. We have a pump to move water from the ground level to the water tank - but how can I know when the tank is truly filled.

On the second level - below the tank - today I stood in a bathroom where I heard the water entering the tank above. When I heard that no more water was entering the tank I knew it was time to turn off the tank.

btw - I am an old man and cannot climb up to the tank all the time. And yes - we have tried wireless tank transmitters but they don't last long. And I am also considering some sort of visual detection scheme but there are complications.

So as I stood in the 2nd story bathroom today I said to myself - hmm - if I could only leave my phone here listening/broadcasting the 'tank filling noise' to my laptop downstairs then I wouldn't have to stand here like this.

I have successfully paired (bluetooth) my ZTE android phone to my Windows 10 laptop but when I (as a test) play music on my phone, the PC says nothing. But even if that did work, I really want to broadcast what the phone hears and not music.

This might be an interesting application in monitoring a sleeping child... but that is another thing.

So - any thoughts ?

 

The laptop needs to play an app. When you connect via bluetooth...... you can record the audio but I don't think there is a way of streaming it via blue tooth.

 

The direct solution would be a skype call from phone to laptop.

Question 1, what is the "toilet filler gizmo" supposed to do? Close a VALVE or shut off the PUMP?

Question 2, it sounds like a gravity fed tank, does the tank have an over-fill relief valve? What happens if the pump tries to over-fill the tank, where does the water go?

 

Thank you both.

I like the idea of using Skype and will play with that idea some this afternoon. Earlier today I found that I can actually hear the water moving up the wall of the house. I can do that from the ground floor.

I'm sure none of this is rocket science - but at this point I wouldn't want to have to install our plumbing by myself. The tank on the roof has a fill valve with a float ball (like an old toilet). When the tank fills water stops going into the tank. The tank relies on gravity to feed the house - but we also have another pump and small tank to pressurize the water so we can get a decent shower etc. The tank on the roof also has the ability to ask for water - and the switch I flip to turn on the pump has three states auto/off/manual. In our six years here we have already burned up one pump - so I rely on manual rather than auto.

In addition to the tank on the roof we have two underground tanks which hold water - one small one for the sprinkler system and another larger one which can fill the tank on the roof or give water at the garden hoses. When the water pressure at the street is 30 psi the whole system works without my giving it any thought. 25 psi and the water does not make it to the roof without the pump. 0 psi at the street (all too often this time of year) and I have to move the water around myself.

I really don't know what happens to the water if I run the pump when the garden hoses are closed, and the in-ground and roof-top tanks are full. I don't think the water is pushed back out to the street - but I suppose that is a possibility.

 

Once I lived in a house from 1940, when the tank was filled , the overflow came back in a "monitoring" tube.
Since you have an automatic valve I guess it just closes when the tank is full. If I should made a system for that I would have put in a modest (small) expansion tank with membrane, and a well pump pressure switch. In addition a motor protection switch with a thermoelectric relay, when the bi metal is heated to long it releases if adjusted well. Then you have double protection of the pump.