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Home > Archive > Home Automation > September 2005 > Recommendation needed: Monitor vacation home, detect outages
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Recommendation needed: Monitor vacation home, detect outages
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| Crewzer 2005-08-21, 7:21 pm |
| We recently purchased a vacation home. It's in a fairly rural area. In
spite of the best efforts of the local utilities, from time to time we lose
power, and telephone service is, well, not exactly "first world" calibre.
There is no cable, dsl, or even cell phone service available.
I'm looking for two sets of advice. First, when the power goes out for some
time, the stuff in the fridge could go bad. Then the power comes back on,
and cools every thing off. We come back, are unaware the power has been off
long enough to harm food, and either take a chance on poisoning ourselves or
we toss out perfectly good stuff. There must be a better way. Does anyone
know of an instrument that can tell us how long the power has been out?
Using an old fashioned mechanical electric clock helps, but doesn't go past
12 hours and doesn't tell us how long the longest outage was.
Second - any ideas for inexpensively monitoring the property? It might be
nice to know the status of the HVAC, water pumps (run and temperature in
pump house), inside temperature, and maybe even an inside camera. It would
all have to be done over a very slow phone line.
I'm just starting to think about this. Clueless how to set up and hook up.
Are there any references one can read?
thanks
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| Shaun Eli 2005-08-22, 9:21 pm |
| There are plenty of digital thermometers that have a minimum/maximum
memory. If you're worried about the food temp in the fridge more than
the air temp, get one with a metal probe (not a wireless one), and
stick the probe in a bottle of water in the fridge. If the water temp
reaches 50 degrees, your food is probably bad. Of course your nose
will probably tell you that as well.
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| sprgns 2005-08-26, 10:21 am |
| It wouldn't necessarily be cheap but HAI (www.homeauto.com) makes home
automation systems that you can call that can tell you what the status of
the power is, temperatures (indoor, or outdoor) humidity, HVAC (if you use
thier thermostats) and any other things that can be monitored by a simple
contact closure. You could also have it log power outages, or call you when
the power is out.
"Crewzer" <crew327@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:c6Wdnb8RZvP5bJXeRVn-jQ@comcast.com...
> We recently purchased a vacation home. It's in a fairly rural area. In
> spite of the best efforts of the local utilities, from time to time we
> lose power, and telephone service is, well, not exactly "first world"
> calibre. There is no cable, dsl, or even cell phone service available.
>
> I'm looking for two sets of advice. First, when the power goes out for
> some time, the stuff in the fridge could go bad. Then the power comes
> back on, and cools every thing off. We come back, are unaware the power
> has been off long enough to harm food, and either take a chance on
> poisoning ourselves or we toss out perfectly good stuff. There must be a
> better way. Does anyone know of an instrument that can tell us how long
> the power has been out? Using an old fashioned mechanical electric clock
> helps, but doesn't go past 12 hours and doesn't tell us how long the
> longest outage was.
>
> Second - any ideas for inexpensively monitoring the property? It might be
> nice to know the status of the HVAC, water pumps (run and temperature in
> pump house), inside temperature, and maybe even an inside camera. It
> would all have to be done over a very slow phone line.
>
> I'm just starting to think about this. Clueless how to set up and hook
> up. Are there any references one can read?
>
> thanks
>
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| wkearney99 2005-09-03, 2:21 pm |
| > I'm looking for two sets of advice. First, when the power goes out for
some
> time, the stuff in the fridge could go bad.
Put ice cubes in a ziploc bag in the freezer. If power goes out they'll
melt and lose their cube shape. If the power's off long enough, of course.
That way you only need look in the freezer to see if they're still in cube
shape. If it's refrozen it'll be the shape of the bag instead of cubes.
Cheap and low tech.
-Bill Kearney
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| sprgns 2005-09-05, 11:21 am |
| won't the same thing happen though if it's a frost free freezer?
"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:aKednSppq61rTYTeRVn-qg@speakeasy.net...
> some
>
> Put ice cubes in a ziploc bag in the freezer. If power goes out they'll
> melt and lose their cube shape. If the power's off long enough, of
> course.
> That way you only need look in the freezer to see if they're still in cube
> shape. If it's refrozen it'll be the shape of the bag instead of cubes.
> Cheap and low tech.
>
> -Bill Kearney
>
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| wkearney99 2005-09-13, 2:22 pm |
| > won't the same thing happen though if it's a frost free freezer?
Uh, think about what you're asking here.
The frost-free part is geared toward avoiding humidity build-up and
freezing, not to thawing the CONTENTS of the fridge. That'd be a HUGE
health hazard and a damn dumb idea. The ice cubes in a bag are just
contents, the same as any other foodstuff you'd have frozen in there with
them.
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