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Greenhouse ice alert.

Hi peeps,I was wondering if anyone new a affordable way to have sometype of alarm to warn you of greenhouse temp. dropping to low.(freeze)
Reason I ask this is I use a small elctric space heater to heat my small 8x6x8 in the winter.It works great for me and I also have a small propane heater just in case the power goes off,but I have to manually turn it on.I use a Oregon Scientific thermometer that I can read what the temp. is from inside my house,works great.It also has a ice alert warning on the display,a very small green light flashes when I think it drops to 37°.But the problem is if your not starring at it you'll never know,and may be to late.Last night the GFI triped and I didnt cacth it intill the greenhouse was 41° luckly my wife noticed the temp on the display .So how can I get a alarm/sound of some type?I thought about taking the little green light that flashes and somehow wire that to a speaker instead of the light.I looked all over and cant find a cheap way to do this.Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions or product that I can use so I can sleep at night and not have to worry about freeze temps.thanks for any advice.
 
Ok, I remember an episode of macgyver that was the opposite of this.

If ya get a bin of water, with a high enough ion content (need to be the right type of ion) to make it conductive, ya can rig up an LED with some batteries and have the conductive water be part of the circut. When the water freezes, light goes off. When it is thawed, it is on.

BOOM! Freeze sensor!

*Note*

This probably won't work...
 
Ok, I remember an episode of macgyver that was the opposite of this.
Hey,you dont have to be a smart ***!
 
A TempAlert greenhouse alarm connected to a Radio Shack piezo speaker, which can be heard from a hundred yards away, easily. The whole thing cost me under a hundred dollars, which is negligible if you want to protect a greenhouse whose contents have value.
 
I bought one of those little indoor outdoor digital thermometers for about $20 a while back and it had a built in alarm you cat set for whatever temp you want.. I don't know what the range is on one though.... I bet you could set it up with a baby monitor though to increase the range -- have the alarm portion near the reciver so you can hear it in the house?? maybe too low tech though, lol..
 
View attachment 1961Well I went to radio shack and hour later,i have this.Since I already had the temp.thermometer I spent $3.95 on the piezo buzzer and did this.It works its not as loud ad I would like but if I went any bigger it would possibly damage the unit.Thanks whim.and lizardom for your help.
 
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guess I should ask the obvious..
Do you not have a thermostat controlling that space heater? If so, you should only have to worry about power outages. In which case they do make power failure alarms that sound when the power goes out.
Personally, I'd pick up a nice thermostat that controls day and night temps. Plug my space heater into that.. Then I'd just add a power failure alarm to the line for easing my worries of black outs.

p.S.. is that lady friend of yours going to order enough food for all of us, or... ?
 
I thnk he does have it on a thermostat, but the GFCI tripped, and cut power.
 
GFCI ???

So.. then he'd only need a power failure alarm, yes?
 
  • #10
Ground fault circuit interrupter. It shuts off if it detects a short or other possible electrical fault. Saves many bacons in the bathroom, and I believe is now mandatory in there.
 
  • #11
ah. like a circuit breaker.. gotcha.

So... fix the fault. Add power failure alarm.. done.. and done!
 
  • #12
Sometimes if there is too much current draw through the circuit it'll trip the GFCI. I would suggest, I know probably impossible, getting a beefier, dedicated circuit for the greenhouse. This would prevent further faults from happening. And ditto that alarm. For now the temp alarm will work, too.
 
  • #13
I don't yet have a proper outdoor GH, and even though I understand the concept.. I can already tell running one is not going to be as easy as I'd like to imagine.
Nothing ever is..

It's easy for me to say,"just do this and that and this and that." But in reality nothing is as easy as it sounds.
Looking forward to starting the headache that goes into building a year round intermediate GH.
Glad to know we have plenty of experienced folks around here for help.

that was fun KT. We should do this again sometime.
 
  • #14
As I was trying to edit the pic.from the other page I was late to receive the responses I received.Power failure alarm?I will also get but if you look to page one of the thread this is what I did.
Ps lady wife mass and we were at pf changs.That place is awsome.Thanks for all your help guys.And now that I know how to post pics maybe I will post a couple.
 
  • #15
A TempAlert greenhouse alarm connected to a Radio Shack piezo speaker, which can be heard from a hundred yards away, easily. The whole thing cost me under a hundred dollars, which is negligible if you want to protect a greenhouse whose contents have value.

Like Paul has said there are many different GH temp alarms out there. Growers supply if farmtek is where I get a lot of my specialty equipment like that from. May be able to find it cheaper though so can Google.
 
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