Contractor Steve Albert has been on his share of emergency plumbing leak calls when he owned and operated County Wide Plumbing, San Antonio, Texas.

Fifteen years ago, an unprecedented cold snap brought nonstop calls, 24 hours a day for a solid week.

“I would be driving to calls and see water coming from other peoples' homes,” he remembered. “We had work that lasted us for three months after that freeze.”

Albert sold his company in 1990, but he's back in business marketing the Mitigator, a whole-house water control system. It can be incorporated into a home's security system. The Mitigator uses a full-port, actuated ball valve to control water flow at the point where it enters your house. State-of-the-art Universal Powerline Bus (UPB®) technology sends a signal over the home's wiring system to the system's servo valve controller, which opens or closes the ball valve. (For nighttime trips to the bathroom, motion sensors in bathrooms turn the water on and off.)

Albert says many other systems on the market only react to moisture sensors typically located by plumbing fixtures.

“But not all leaks occur near a fixture,” Albert said. “Let's say there's a pinhole leak inside a wall. The closest sensor may be 10 feet away, and a lot of damage could occur. We thought, let's just make it easy for the homeowners to turn the water on and off just like their lights!”

Albert teamed up with a former neighbor, insurance agent Kris Richter. “In Texas alone, homeowner insurance claims for nonweather-related water damage consistently exceed $300 million per year, and water damage is one of the most frequently submitted claims against homeowners' insurance policies,” Richter said.

To find out more, contact the company at 888/495-4567 or visit www.themitigator.com.