I'm a snowbird and worry about a furnace failure while I'm away. I've heard that there is a temperature sensing switch that will turn on a lamp if the house gets too cold. I'd like to set a lamp in the front window so my neighbor can check the place as he drives by without coming inside. Does such a switch exist? Who sells it? Thanks in advance.
Just buy a 120 volt thermostat like this one:
Course if the cause of no heat is a power failure, then you're not in very good shape, are you.
For a little more money you can buy low temperature alarms which will dial a phone number, maybe your heating contractor, and deliver a message.
HTH,
Jeff
And if the bulb burns out or power is out or the neighbor doesnt "see" it or he wants to go to sleep, I use a freeze alarm that calls me if temp gets near 45, battery operated.
One of my relatives just installed this one from Home Depot:
I was going to get one for the house I've been trying to sell, but as of
1PM today it became no l> I'm a snowbird and worry about a furnace failure while I'm away. I've heard
be easy enough to make one using an old thermostat, an ice cube relay, and some basic home electrical type stuff. Or just use a line voltage thermostat.
nate
How far away does the neighbor live? You could just get one of those remote thermometers and put the sensor that you would normally put outside in your living room and give the neighbor the inside unit. He could then check the actual temp regularly.
There used to be plug-in thermostats to control non-thermostat controlled electric heaters. Don't know if or where they are available today
Found it. Ductstat from AprilAire or Suncourt - model DS100, or LUX Win100. Also Thermocube (non adjustable)
I think it can be done with X10 although that would be a serious mistake given X10 open loop structure. I personally wouldn't trust a nightlight to X10.
Why involve the neighbors at all? Just get yourself a weather station, a domain name, and a cheap hosting company and then let the weather station upload to the Internet every couple of minutes. The weather station is probably about $150 and the domain and hosting is only $35 per year. This way you can not only tell if your furnace stopped working you can also tell if it stuck on for some unknown reason. Plus you can find out how miserable it is back home.
Feel free to check mine out at
Don
Its called a Winter Watchman made by Honeywell, about 18.00 works great..
Have a plumber install a drain plug and drain the water before leaving and then you can keep the heat completely off. Why pay for something that you don't use?
because freeze thaw can do damage to furniture and espically plaster walls.
homes arent designed to be frozen. they are likely the most expensive thing anyone buys.
as such they need some level of care
I have a summer home in upstate NY near Albany. I close it down every winter. I've had this house for 30 years. I have yet to see any considerable damage inside due to freeze thaw. Where is your house? What kind of damage have you gotten already from previous winters?
I dont know where you live but here alot have summer lake homes and it goes to -25f, shutting down is common sence, Plaster goes bad if you have a roof or wall leak, freezing hurts nothing and kills termites, my local music store has over 100 wood instruments kept unheated, Heat and water kills wood furniture, and yes my lake house is unheated now, its zero out today and furnished. Take a trip to Europe where 2-500 yrs old buildings dont get replastered every year, if they did plaster would not be used.
I do the same, its stupid to rely on a heating system at cold temps to protect an investment, in 5 minutes I can have pipes drained, I use
1/4 turn ball valves to drain, and open all faucets. One broken pipe from a broken heating system can cost tens of thousands in damage.
How cold does a house get with no heat, relative to the outside? Will it eventually cool to match (with a bit of time-lag) the outside air, or will it always keep a few degrees above whatever the outside air's doing?
Personally if I wanted some kind of warning setup, and the stakes were high, I'd make sure I had two different systems in place - preferably with one of them not relying on AC power. And make darn sure I test that they actually work before going away, of course :-)
cheers
Jules
-snip-
They are pretty & all- but can't you do the same thing with a $10 line voltage thermostat?
Jim
It would probably hold some heat from absorbing sunlight, but I wouldn't count on it to keep the pipes from bursting. If it gets below 20 degrees F, you need to either heat the house or drain the plumbing.
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