Avoiding frozen pipes, flooding from leaky water heater

[AKSkeeter]

We winter in Montana and enjoy and extended bird season.
We rent our Alaska home in the winter with a tenant upstairs and downstairs used for our storage.

I like the RING sensor systems because there is no subscription required and there is a wide variety
of sensors: freeze/flood, motion, contact sensors, etc. I also like the video camera that texts me
whenever anyone drives into the the property. Plus I can see how much snow is still back home.

We use a watchman temperature sensor downstairs that logs the ambient temperature ever
hour and emails me the 24-hour log every day. The watchman is more precise than the RING
freeze flood sensor. The RING freeze flood sensor is triggered at 40 degrees F, while the
watchman sensor can be set by the user. I have the temperature thresholds set to 70F and 60F
which has worked well.

Last weekend while our tenant was away backcountry skiing, the
watchman texted a warning as soon as the room temperature dropped below 60F.
We could see an hourly decline...60F, 58F, 55F....and called a neighbor to fire up the wood stoves
on both floors. Then contacted the heating contractor for service the next morning.
Turned out the recirculating pump died so the boiler shutdown.

It was 9 degrees F that night, so frozen pipes were possible

 

[Alaskan swamp collies]

Ah yes the joys of leaving AK for extended periods in the winter. We were gone for 4 months this winter, had a house sitter but she never really used it like we did. Meaning she didn't wash loads of laundry every couple days and work out and take multiple showers. End result our septic line to the tank froze up and broke, took 2 weeks to thaw the ground and replace. Will have loads of yard work when the snow goes. Are you in the interior?

 

[AKSkeeter]

Ah yes the joys of leaving AK for extended periods in the winter. We were gone for 4 months this winter, had a house sitter but she never really used it like we did. Meaning she didn't wash loads of laundry every couple days and work out and take multiple showers. End result our septic line to the tank froze up and broke, took 2 weeks to thaw the ground and replace. Will have loads of yard work when the snow goes. Are you in the interior?

Ouch! With all that snow to insulate the ground, I am surprised you had problems with a frozen septic line under the snowpack.
Yes interior AK, 15 miles west of Fairbanks.
Since we are now retired, the plan is to put the AK house on the market and move permanently to Montana as we enjoy the
bird hunting much more in MT than AK.

 

[Birdman2]

Ouch! With all that snow to insulate the ground, I am surprised you had problems with a frozen septic line under the snowpack.
Yes interior AK, 15 miles west of Fairbanks.
Since we are now retired, the plan is to put the AK house on the market and move permanently to Montana as we enjoy the
bird hunting much more in MT than AK.

Montana is a special place.. I love Montana.