Bilge & flood alarms

A sealed battery sensor at the low point that sleeps for years and reports the second water reaches it — the alarm every boat needs, whatever else you install.

High water is the universal failure. Rain past a tired cover, a weeping stuffing box, a packing gland that let go, a bilge pump quietly losing to a slow leak, a slow drip under the water heater — none of these need a city-water hookup, and all of them end badly if the first person to notice is a dock neighbor a week later. The bilge alarm is the piece of DockNeighbor that covers every one of them.

What happens in the seconds after water touches a sensor t = 0 seconds 🌊 Water touches the sensor it wakes instantly 📡 The station hears it and carries it to the cloud 📲 You are told push on every plan, app closed 💧🔒 Valve closes automatically with a LinkTap valve — Weekender and up If the alarm is still going five minutes later and you haven’t answered, it reaches the friends you marked — the neighbors who are fifty feet away.
Battery flood sensors sleep for years, then report the moment it matters. Alarms are never throttled and never plan-gated.

The hardware

Two DockNeighbor sensors catch rising water: the water leak sensor, a pair of steel probes you mount at the height where water means trouble, and the bilge float sensor, a sealed waterproof unit with a float switch for the bilge itself. Both run for years on their battery, sleep between reports, and wake instantly when water reaches them, reporting by long-range radio to the station. No wiring, no Wi-Fi.

A sleeping sensor can look “quiet” in the app right after setup — that’s normal. Sensors speak when they have something to say and check in on a schedule, and the app judges staleness by that schedule rather than by pestering them.

Placement

  • The bilge low point — wherever water collects first. This is the one every boat should have: the float sensor here, or the leak probes a finger or two above the usual residual water.
  • Under known weep points — the water heater, the head, the galley sink. Slow drips get caught while they're still drips.
  • One per compartment that matters — sensors are cheap; hauling out isn't. Multiple sensors also tell you where the water is.

The details are in Hardware setup.

Who hears it

  • You, first: the alarm reaches the cloud through the station in seconds and pushes to your phone with the app closed, on every plan. Flood alarms are never throttled, never coalesced away, and never plan-gated.
  • Then your neighbors: if it is still going five minutes later and you haven't answered, it reaches the friends you marked. See Alerts & notifications.

If you're hooked to city water

A flood alarm can also act: with a LinkTap valve on the dock spigot (Weekender and up), the cloud closes the valve on its own. That combination (and why the valve belongs at the source, not the inlet) has its own pages: Water control & safety and the city-water use case. No valve? The alarm above is complete on its own — the valve is the city-water add-on, not a prerequisite.

Test it — actually

A protection system you've never tested is a hope, not a system. Bridge the probes with a wet cloth, or lift the float, and expect the push on your phone. Do it once at install and once at the start of each season — it takes ten seconds and it's the only way to know the whole chain works.

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