If there are any guys out there familiar with temperature monitoring and/ o r heating systems perhaps you can help me. My kids bought a historic 250 ye ar old house that they run their business out of. There is forced hot water heat throughout the house however except for the what seems like miles of copper heating system pipes that run through it, the dirt floor basement i s unheated. During the Winter months the unheated basement usually remains above freezing because of the boiler and all the heating pipes down there t hat run through the cellar.
They've made numerous repairs and upgrades to the house but as could be exp ected it's still a drafty old building and difficult to heat. The first flo or can usually be made "comfortable" (if you keep moving) but heating it is an effort and one which is reflected by their oil bill.
This Winter in efforts to save on oil they're going to install a pellet sto ve on the first floor. This they hope will seriously decrease the running t ime on the boiler and hopefully save on fuel. It does however pose another problem though. With the duty cycle on the boiler decreased now the basemen t will be able to get colder. And in the event of a real cold snap we could experience frozen pipes.
My son absolutely does not want to add a basement zone to the heating syste m so he came up with this other idea:
With this device you can set your points and get a relay closure at whateve r low (or high) temperature you want. He figures to set it at about 35 degr ees. He then plans to parallel that relay closure with the thermostat conne ctions for zone1 (first floor) on the heating system. He feels that in this way although this will kick the boiler on and he'll be heating the first f loor upstairs due to the increased circulation in the basement this will ke ep the basement from freezing if the temperature dips unusually low.
Another thing that would be really helpful would be the ability t remotely monitor the basement temperature perhaps over the internet. So a device tha t would both trip the boiler on while at the same time remotely annunciate the temperature would be ideal. Does anything like this exist, and if so is it affordable? Thanks for any opinions on this. Lenny