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System thermostat for freeze protection

Robert_H
Robert_H Member Posts: 150
A friend heats primarily with wood. He has a 10 year old oil fired boiler that he turns on when the temp gets around ten degrees. he forgot recently and had some pipes freeze. Is there a way he can set up an outdoor thermostat to bring his system up at a certain temp? I guess he could put a thermostat in the area of the house that suffers the lowest temps and set that somewhere above freezing as a protection.

Comments

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 24,859
    Honeywell

    makes a version of the T87 which can be set as low as 45.  There are also any number of agricultural thermostats which can be set that low, and are ridiculously cheap.



    I'd put it inside.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Zman
    Zman Member Posts: 7,611
    Glycol

    If he has pipes in areas that are prone to freezing, why not glycol the system?

    He is going to run into the same problems during a power outage, then what?

    Carl
    "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"
    Albert Einstein
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 24,859
    Drinking water

    pipes... freeze just as hard as heating pipes do!  And, if you aren't there they can do an appalling amount of damage when they thaw.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Robert_H
    Robert_H Member Posts: 150
    Thanks for the replies!

    I will pass them on.

    Robert