Cohousing-L Mailing List: Temperature sensors

[Katie Henry (katie-henry]

I should have mentioned this a few weeks ago, before the winter storm of the 
century. 

We have a dozen riser rooms for fire-suppression sprinkler systems (one on an 
exterior wall of each building) plus two well houses for irrigation water 
pumps. 

Each space has a small utility space heater. If a heater fails, the pipes could 
be vulnerable to extreme low temperatures. If a fire sprinkler pipe bursts, the 
damage can be catastrophic.

We placed one of these wireless thermometers in each space at the beginning of 
last winter. They work great. You can view the current temperature in each 
space on a dashboard from your phone. You can set it to send alerts if a 
temperature drops below a certain point. We have backup heaters that we can 
swap out if a heater fails. We're just hoping the power doesn't go out.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNPH97LM

The initial setup is not difficult. The tricky part is figuring out where to 
install the wifi gateways so they're close enough to the sensors to reliably 
pick up the bluetooth signal. We have four gateways scattered around the site. 
Each one is installed on the outside porch of someone's home and connected to 
that home's wifi network. You may need to move things around to get better 
reception.

You will also want to allow time to determine the ideal thermostat settings for 
your space heaters. Last winter, we had some heaters blasting too much heat and 
others not enough. We now have them adjusted so all the spaces maintain a 
steady 45 to 50 deg. F even on the coldest days. 

Katie Henry
Heartwood Commons - Tulsa
https://www.heartwoodcommonstulsa.com/
Currently 10 deg. F and no burst pipes yet