Pump failure & run-dry alarm, AustraliaThe pump stopped. Now you know.
A small sensor watches the pump and the tank it fills. The moment the pump stops, trips or the tank stops filling, your phone gets a text, then a call, until a human answers. Bores, dams, transfer pumps: if stock drink from it, it gets watched all day.
Clamps on the pump lead. Solar and battery. LoRa reaches the far paddock, no WiFi needed.
Current and level read every 15 seconds. Logged every 15 minutes. Forever.
The pump that fails on the hottest day
A pump never fails where you can see it. The thermal trips on a forty degree afternoon, a float sticks, a fuse lets go in a shed two paddocks over, and the pump sits there silent while the stock drink the trough down. Run it dry long enough and the pump cooks itself too. You find out when the troughs are empty, and by then the water cart is the cheap part.
Pump Alarm exists so you find out the hour it stops, not days later, while the tank is still holding water and the fix is a reset breaker instead of a dead pump.
One dry week, hour by hour
Here is exactly what happens the day a bore pump trips: what the clamp sees, what the hub does about it, and what your phone hears. Follow the timestamps.
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the clamp · reads current every 15 seconds Tue 11:40amThe pump trips
A thermal trip, a stuck float, a blown fuse. Nothing bangs, nothing smokes, nothing is visible from the house. The clamp on the pump lead sees the current drop from a steady 6 amps to zero, and it knows the difference between a pump resting and a pump gone.
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the level · falling with nothing going back in Tue 11:52amThe tank stops filling
The header tank level falls all afternoon, the way it always does with stock drinking on a hot day. The difference is that nothing is going back in. The alarm knows a normal draw-down from a pump that is not putting water back, so it does not wait for empty to say so.
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solar and battery · heartbeat if it ever goes silent Tue 12:04pmThe alert gets out, no WiFi needed
The node at the pump runs on solar and battery and talks to the homestead hub over LoRa: kilometres of range, no WiFi, no mains power, no phone signal needed at the shed. The hub passes the alert on over 4G. If any of it ever goes silent, a heartbeat alert tells you that too, so silence never means everything is fine.
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12:04pmSMS: Bore pump stopped. Header tank no longer filling.12:09pmNo reply. Calling you now.12:11pmCall answered. Alarm acknowledged.
the alert panel · SMS → call → second contact Tue 12:09pmIt rings until a human answers
A text first. No reply in five minutes, your phone rings. Still nothing, it rings your second contact. Out in the yards or on the tractor, the first message is the easiest one to miss, so the alarm does not stop at one.
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12:35pmThermal trip reset at the shed.12:38pmBore pump running. 6.1 A.12:40pmHeader tank filling. Stock never noticed.
the history · wrote itself while you drove Tue 12:40pmWater flowing before the troughs are dry
The fix was a tripped breaker and a two minute drive, not a dead pump, a water cart and a paddock of stressed stock. Every event sits in the history, timestamped: the trip, the alert, the call, the reset, the recovery.
This is the dashboard doing its job
Real product, simulated bore. Press the button and watch a failure unfold the way it would on your phone: the pump stops, the tank falls, the alert, the escalation, the recovery. Nobody has to be watching a screen, the alarm does the watching.
What does one dry week cost you?
A replacement pump plus emergency water cartage adds up fast, and that is before the days spent hauling. In a heatwave the real bill is stock losses, and those do not come back.
That is what you are betting every week the pump runs unwatched. The alarm rings you within minutes of the pump stopping, while the tank is still holding water.
Rough reckoner, your numbers, no email required. For a monitored plan quote, use the form below.
Get a straight quoteBuilt for the pumps nobody is standing next to
Bore & transfer pumps
The bore feeds the header tank and the header tank feeds everything else. When the bore pump trips, the whole chain runs down quietly. The clamp sees the current stop the minute it happens and rings you while the tank is still mostly full.
Header tanks & troughs
Add a level sensor and the tank is watched from both ends: a pump that stops filling it, and a leak or a stuck float draining it. Either way you get the call while the fix is still cheap and the troughs are still wet.
Irrigation & dams
A dam pump that loses prime chews out its own seals in an afternoon. The clamp picks the change in the current the moment it happens and rings you before the pump cooks itself, not after the Monday inspection finds it dead.
Pump alarm questions, answered straight
Does it work with any pump?
Yes. The sensor is a clamp that goes around the pump's power lead and reads the current draw. No rewiring, no cutting into anything, and nothing to void a warranty. Bore pumps, transfer pumps, pressure pumps, single or three phase.
What if there is no WiFi or power out at the pump?
The node at the pump runs on solar and battery and talks to the homestead hub over LoRa radio, which reaches for kilometres. No WiFi, no mains power and no phone signal needed at the pump. If the node ever goes silent, a heartbeat alert tells you that too.
Will it false-alarm every time the pump cycles?
No. The alarm learns what a normal cycle looks like for your pump and you set a grace window on top. A pressure pump kicking in and out wakes nobody. A pump that stays off while the tank keeps falling rings your phone.
Can it watch the tank as well?
Yes. Add a level sensor and the alarm watches the tank alongside the pump. That catches run-dry from the other end, and it catches a leak or a stuck float too, because a tank that keeps falling while the pump runs is its own kind of trouble.
How hard is it to install?
The clamp goes around the pump lead and the hub plugs in at the house. No electrician needed for the sensor side, no plumbing changes, no trenching. Most setups are watching within the hour.
What does it cost?
The kit is a one-off purchase and monitoring is a small monthly plan. Tell us what the pump feeds and how far it is from the house, and we will send you a straight quote the same business day.
Rather talk it through?
Call and describe your setup. We will tell you in five minutes whether one hub covers it.
02 8355 5455Pump Alarm is the alarm sibling of Tank Monitoring. Serious tank and water-level monitoring across many tanks or sites belongs over there. The pump that fills the tank belongs here.