Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

[jkust]

Hi all, as I mentioned a couple months ago our trailering days ended when we bought a vacation home on a lake. With that comes a whole set of new things to be concerned about. I'm in MN where of course below zero F temps are common. We went up this past weekend to start to insulate the attached, heated garage and wouldn't you know it while we were there the furnace thermostat stopped working. Great timing that we were there to replace it but now I realize I need to buy a cellular phone based freeze alarm system so I can be warned in the event the furnace quits. We have decided to heat the house all year. I see all kinds of freeze alarms on the internet with varying reviews. As we don't have an active phone line, I will need to buy a prepaid cell phone that stays on a charger connected to the freeze alarm that can make outgoing warning calls to me and that I can call into to check the temp.
Does anybody have any experience with this type of system? Any recommendations or suggestions?

Thanks

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

Interesting issue, most of my family lives in either MN or SD...the ones in SD have a cabin on Lake Poinsett (sp?), outside Brookings, SD they just winterize (shut off water, blow out all water lines and don't worry about until spring). Is there any reason to not winterize? I would think it's cheaper than worrying about an alarm? If you plan on using it in the winter, then it make sense? I'd still recommend shutting off water and keeping all faucets open as a just in case?! Pour RV antifreeze down all drains, drain H2O heater, etc...

Just my $.02
~Brett

 

[jkust]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

Interesting issue, most of my family lives in either MN or SD...the ones in SD have a cabin on Lake Poinsett (sp?), outside Brookings, SD they just winterize (shut off water, blow out all water lines and don't worry about until spring). Is there any reason to not winterize? I would think it's cheaper than worrying about an alarm? If you plan on using it in the winter, then it make sense? I'd still recommend shutting off water and keeping all faucets open as a just in case?! Pour RV antifreeze down all drains, drain H2O heater, etc...

Just my $.02
~Brett

Thanks for the response


We plan to use it year round for holidays and snowmobiling. I drain the lines as best as I can by shutting off the water and opening up all of the faucets plus dump rv antifreeze into the toilets both front and rear and pour some down all drains too. That takes all of 5 minutes. The concerns are that I don't drain the waterheater which I'm now second guessing as I just turn both of the waterheater thermostats way down (for some reason it has two thermostats). The pump room is in the garage hence why it is heated. I don't remove and drain the water filtration system or drain the big pressure tank in the pump room either.

The cabin has a whole house alarm/hard wired system and I'm betting that it is able to do what a freeze alarm does but I don't have the either the arm or disarm code so it is essentially useless plus it would require a contract as it can't call me but would call a central office and they would notify me. It is an old school alarm system...and again I don't have the phone connected anyway.
Even if I did drain those things, since I don't get it blown out, i'd still have some damage in the event of a furnace failure.

 

[jkust]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

As I travel and the wife often goes with me I looked into various systems for the farm. Each type had draw backs, power fails and everything fails, cell phone batteries go dead, and the biggest one, if I'm 1000 miles away it doesn't really do me any good.

My solution; Made some plumbing changes so I can quickly and easily drain the water lines, keep "pink" antifreeze handy for the drains and turn the heat down / off. The money saved on heating fuel more than offsets the cost of the pink stuff and the peace of mind is priceless.

Good thoughts. One issue is that my wife has made the decision to keep it open all year and so I can't fight that battle so am trying to work with it. So now it is about prevention and mitigation. Apparently some of the systems will warn you if power goes out but I suppose eventually the cell battery would go out as well and/or the back up freeze alarm battery.
There seems to be so much technology out there but it is hard to harness without paying a lot of money in equipment and things like cell phones and prepaid service. A lot of these alarms seem to be really old technology based on land line use and you have to force them to work with cell phones. It got down to single digits at the cabin yesterday and so I need to get this figured out and get some piece of mind soon.

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

If you do go with a cellular based alarm warning, have a central panel that does intrusion, smoke, fire, water flow, freeze power detection (might as well). If it's done right, with battery back-up which should stay charged while the power is working? ADT, SimplexGrinnell (both owned by Tyco, LTD), local alarm company? I know there's a price for monitoring, but it almost worth the piece of mind knowing that you'll be notified in the event of?

I also know there are other systems you can buy without a service contracts and set it up with some form of cellular notification, but for me, that's a big PITA based not being 100% comfortable with reliability?! I would say internet would be a good monitoring option, but again that requires power, battery back up (only until you arrive to fix) or some generator with a shunt device that can start in the event of <----- Those are big dollars and would pay for years of monitoring?!

Brett

P.S. as far as the cellular being charged, most have better than 12 hours of stand-by (some have like 40 hours). If the power goes out you should be notified way before the battery dies...hopefully?

Good Luck

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

I have the same issue but I have internet all the time. My internet based thermostat sends me a text message/email when the house falls below a selected temp. It also sends me a text message/email when it detects motion in the house.

I have had it for over 2 years now and it is very reliable.

BAYweb - Home

 

[jkust]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

If you do go with a cellular based alarm warning, have a central panel that does intrusion, smoke, fire, water flow, freeze power detection (might as well). If it's done right, with battery back-up which should stay charged while the power is working? ADT, SimplexGrinnell (both owned by Tyco, LTD), local alarm company? I know there's a price for monitoring, but it almost worth the piece of mind knowing that you'll be notified in the event of?

I also know there are other systems you can buy without a service contracts and set it up with some form of cellular notification, but for me, that's a big PITA based not being 100% comfortable with reliability?! I would say internet would be a good monitoring option, but again that requires power, battery back up (only until you arrive to fix) or some generator with a shunt device that can start in the event of <----- Those are big dollars and would pay for years of monitoring?!

Brett


Good Luck

I really wished I knew how to use the current alarm system. It has the central panel and motion sensors, door and window sensors plus presume it has freeze warning capability. As for the internet situation up there it is satellite internet only and while it has a dish on the roof and in several of the rooms, I just can't see paying so much for very limited winter use and apparently satellite internet even the higher end packages limit your gigs like a cell phone would.

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

Are you looking at this one? It's a local MN based company FWIW?

Cellular Phone Based Monitoring Systems & Mobile Phone Alarms

 

[Scott Danforth]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

for what its worth, My father added a propane space heater with a pilot light to the basement of his place in northern Wisconsin that he has on all winter long. he has the thermostat set to 50 on it. 99% of the time it never comes on. The 1% of the time when there is a power outage, or the igniter on his furnace fails, the space heater keeps his basement at 50, which keeps the rest of his house about 45. I think he paid $400 for the wall mounted space heater

He also uses a solargizer charger on a battery that supplies a 800 GPH bilge pump as his backup sump pump. That last one he didnt think about until there was a power outage in spring

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

even if the panel doesn't have a provision for freeze alarm, it simply needs a signal from the device, whatever it's called? It activates the panel and notifies a monitor call station (unless it's local only)...which in turn will notify you (if set-up that way). If no monitoring, then a local horn and strobe with go off, again, assuming there are some...which will do you no good, unless you' re within earshot of the alarm?

I think getting some testimonials from people who have used the systems you're considering willl go a long way?!

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

for what its worth, My father added a propane space heater with a pilot light to the basement of his place in northern Wisconsin that he has on all winter long. he has the thermostat set to 50 on it. 99% of the time it never comes on. The 1% of the time when there is a power outage, or the igniter on his furnace fails, the space heater keeps his basement at 50, which keeps the rest of his house about 45. I think he paid $400 for the wall mounted space heater

He also uses a solargizer charger on a battery that supplies a 800 GPH bilge pump as his backup sump pump. That last one he didnt think about until there was a power outage in spring

I like both of those ideas with an alarm notification!

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

Lots of ways to look at this one..

What is your heating situation? propane? You could use redundant thermostats wired in parallel, Is the furnace forced air?

Is the utility room closed off so that you could install a small back up electric heating sysytem. I did that in my utility closet that had a small 500 w baseboard heater attached to a line voiltage thermostat set for 40 degrees.

Dont forget the use of heat tape on your piping. Also, how accessible is your plumbing.

I have essentially the same situation but I drain each fall because we don't use it in the winter that much and i am too cheap to burn the propane. i also don't have a fixed phone line (again too cheap).

Your best bet is redundant systems because without that, the damage may be done before you get there.

I had a friend who i helped get his cabin setup for full winter heating. We installed a cold and water alarm and just started the winter heating. The ironic part is that his cabin burned down - cold alarm - no heat alarm. His aged furnace sprouted a propane leak and up in flames it went. So if the furnace is of any age, make sure it is in good sound condition.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

My friend has a home in Alaska and he is actually going to go with a satellite internet system for the very reason of monitoring his home. He is installing an automatic diesel generator so he wants to monitor when the generator comes on and the temp of the house.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

His aged furnace sprouted a propane leak and up in flames it went. So if the furnace is of any age, make sure it is in good sound condition.

Good point. I just replaced my 20 year old heater in my vacation home as well. Not because it didn't work but because I can't afford to have it fail.

 

[jkust]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

Lots of ways to look at this one..

What is your heating situation? propane? You could use redundant thermostats wired in parallel, Is the furnace forced air?

Is the utility room closed off so that you could install a small back up electric heating sysytem. I did that in my utility closet that had a small 500 w baseboard heater attached to a line voiltage thermostat set for 40 degrees.

Dont forget the use of heat tape on your piping. Also, how accessible is your plumbing.

As for heating it has a propane tank running forced air furnace plus electric heater boards in the kitchen/dining room and the master bedroom. I wanted to turn the heater boards on so that they turn on at a point below the temperature of the forced air meaning that if they went on, the furnace must have failed. The heater boards don't have temperature settings on them that say when they turn on. Instead they just have dials with slashes and I have no clue what temperature they would turn on at based on where the dial is set so I just left them off. I wanted that to be my redundant heat system for at least the inside of the house but I'm deathly afraid of having them stay on and get a massive electric bill as I have heard many horror stories of that situation. In the garage then I'm thinking of possibly using my oil radiatant heater which is a bit easier to figure out when it will and won't turn on given the garage is not a big one. I will take a look at that link posted above.

I really like the internet connected thermostat solution if there were some other option besides satellite internet.

 

[avenger79]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

as far as the satelite only internet, you may be able to look into one of the cell phone plans for internet. I live in a satelite only area as well. my internet comes from verizon. little hockey puck sized unit sits on a shelf. as long as I can get phone service where it is, I can get internet. very affordable and never goes out. My satelite TV I can't say that for.

 

[avenger79]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

My friend has a home in Alaska and he is actually going to go with a satellite internet system for the very reason of monitoring his home. He is installing an automatic diesel generator so he wants to monitor when the generator comes on and the temp of the house.

when I worked at a smaller generator company we set a couple vacation homes up that way, mostly for our execs as we were testing the units reliability. they loved it. not generally a "cheap" thing to do though.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

I really like the internet connected thermostat solution if there were some other option besides satellite internet.

I love mine. If you wanted, I could demo how it works in a remote session like join.me.

How much is satellite internet?

I am thinking about adding a UPS to mine but not sure if that is useful since my internet is cable and if the power goes out in the neighborhood, the cable may be down as well.

One thing I am also going to be adding is an internet camera for the top of my home. I already have the camera.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=509962&Q=&is=REG&A=details

I have a small Foscam camera sitting in the window of my GFs vacation home. That is kinda fun. I use it to see how much snow we are getting.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

when I worked at a smaller generator company we set a couple vacation homes up that way, mostly for our execs as we were testing the units reliability. they loved it. not generally a "cheap" thing to do though.

His house gets cold in the winter. He has everything drained including antifreeze in the pipes. They get long periods of power outages and apparently the cold ruins the wood floors and other issues. Don't know all the details of that.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Anybody ever use a freeze alarm for a vacation home?

One additional idea.. If you have a neighbor that is relatively close and they have internet, you could negotiate paying part of the monthly internet expense to allow you to monitor your stuff.