{"id":4838,"date":"2014-12-12T11:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.diycontrols.com\/?p=4838"},"modified":"2015-01-23T12:54:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T17:54:13","slug":"what-you-can-do-to-prevent-a-frozen-pipes-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.diycontrols.com\/index.php\/what-you-can-do-to-prevent-a-frozen-pipes-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Can Do to Prevent a Frozen Pipes Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2ll bet most homeowners have never heard of a device called a \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cfreeze alarm<\/a><\/strong>\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u00a6 unless they experienced the same devastating consequences of frozen pipes that we did in our Vermont vacation house one cold January day. Fortunately, we were able to dodge a whole house disaster because our caretaker just happened to stop by for her weekly visit and noticed that our heat was out. And she was able to arrange for a repairman to fix the furnace that same day so we only suffered damage in one bathroom. But how could we prevent another frozen pipe fiasco from happening in the future? That was our dilemma.\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

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Weighing the Options<\/em><\/h2>\n

If our house had gone unheated for another day, more pipes would have froze and burst and there would have been serious damage to the walls, carpeting and furniture, as well as our personal belongings. We considered increasing the number of caretaker visits to two or three times a week, but we concluded that this wasn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t a good option. If the furnace failed in between caretaker visits, our pipes could still freeze, especially during a long cold snap.<\/p>\n

So we did some online research to see if there was some kind of device that would warn us if the heat went out again so we could address the situation before<\/em> the pipes froze.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 A quick Google search led us to a category of devices called \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cfreeze alarms<\/a>,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d which are affordable, easy-to-install monitors that alert you when the temperature in your home drops below a certain level (typically around 45\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00b0 F)<\/strong>.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Bingo — we had our solution!<\/p>\n

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Criteria for Choosing a Freeze Alarm<\/em><\/h2>\n

Now we had to figure out which freeze alarm was best for our situation. We learned that prices ranged from under $50 for a very basic freeze alarm, like the Reliance Controls PhoneOut Freeze Monitor<\/a>,<\/strong> to $300 to $400 for a multi-functional model that can monitor for other conditions.<\/p>\n

We also learned that in addition to how much you want to spend, the most important criteria<\/strong> for choosing a freeze alarm<\/a><\/strong> are:<\/p>\n