Hello all,
I am looking for recommendations on a cold temperature alarm system. We have a home near Mt Washington , NH (a rather chilly location at times!!). This home has a dedicated thermostat set to close the switch when the temperature falls below a set temperature (e.g. 50 deg). When the switch closes, a strobe is illuminated on the front porch to alert security that the boiler may have malfunctioned. Well, the boiler malfunctioned last week and the strobe somehow burned out. Renters entering the house Friday night found the temperature inside at 32 (well.. it was -23 outside!!). Everything was frozen, including our radiant heating system. Most of the plumbing is Onyx (similar to PEX). Lost a few fixtures and burst one pipe in the basement. One toilet and 2 loops of the radiant are still frozen. The strobe has been replaced and a new transformer for the strobe installed. Unfortunately, my confidence in this system is non-existent. Can anyone recommend a more robust (or alternate) alarm system for cold temperatures? I have heard that there are systems that you connect to the phone lines and you call to interrogate the thermostat as to the current temperature.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Johnny
Replies
Install a second t-stat with a lower setpoint, maybe 45 degrees. Connect it to the house alarm system. If the inside temps gets to 45, the stat calls for heat, but actually sends a signal to the alarm panel, which you have set up to dial your cell phone number.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
A good place to start would be http://www.smarthome.com
I have not been threre recently, but I think that they have stuff to setup one or more of the following.
1. A phone dailer that will call you on a cold condtion.
2. A system that you call and check the tempature.
3. A full alarm system of which freeze is just on of the items. Then that can either sound a local alarm (but interal and external and sound or light). And either call an alarm monitoring company (@ $10/month) or you.
I am not sure what all you can setup. But I see if you could put together an alarm system with full time fire and temp monitoring and "burglar" alarm and you can remotely disable and enable the intrustion alarm circuits.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Good idea for an alarm! I could stay at the house when no one is there and call you if there is a problem, Maybe other BT could rotate also. Just to chilly this morning to give any serious help!
There is a neat thing called the FreezeAlarm. I had a similar situation a few years back, down in Moultonborough. I went in one Friday evening, and the temp inside was 27, with ice in the sink traps, toilet, etc. The NH Electric Cooperative had been promoting the FreezeAlarm, so I bought one; a little over $200 (then) for the medium version. It can be programmed to call out to three phone numbers on any of low temp, power outage, or low backup battery voltage. Any time I worry about how the heating system is doing in the cold snaps, I can call up and interrogate the current inside temp, power status, etc, and even change the settings. I wish I had it the year before I lost the heating system. There was one model up from what I bought, which, when coupled with the right thermostat, would have let me call ahead to turn up the thermostat for my arrival. But that wasn't what I needed.
I just looked on the smarthome.com site, and the item I bought is there, the Intermediate FreezeAlarm. $200.