Well, maybe I'm over paranoid... But this system is a really big chunk of my disposable income - I can't afford to blow it up!
Thanks for the kind words at any rate, they do sound reassuring, but I know that I have a tendency to not be as good as I should be about checking stuff. I'm trying to design around that as well.
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SparkedFire: i thought about getting a probe and setup that would detect water if it was to leak.
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That one is actually one of the features I thought would be easiest to do... Home Depot sells a nice little alarm box about the size of a pack of smokes, runs off a 9V battery, and has a cable with a probe on it. If the probe gets wet, the box sets off an alarm about as loud as a smoke detector. Cost was around $10 as I recall. Harbour Freight Tools sometimes sells a similiar box for even less.
I took an older one apart once, and it was pretty simple inside. I'd be willing to bet it would be possible to pick a signal off the alarm speaker and use that to trip a relay that would kill the system power. I might consider replacing the battery with a wall-wart or tapping into a PC supply line, but it really isn't needed, the batteries last for years. The only question might be whether it would have enough power to trip the kill relay.
The sensor is just two bare metal pins about 1/4" apart, mounted in a plastic insulator. (it apparently works by the water shorting out the pins) I see no reason why you couldn't hack the sensor cord to put lots of parallel test points into it. The only caution is that the pins will detect contact with a case part as a leak, so some care in mounting is indicated.
Just guessing, but I think you could probably build the whole setup in a few hours and it wouldn't cost more than $20-30. As a bonus, it should be possible to use the same kill relay for any of the other above alarms I suggested where slamming the power is appropriate.
Gooserider