Over the last couple months, our area of the country has gotten hit with more than it’s share of adverse weather conditions. In fact, as WWLP reports, almost a quarter of a million people lost power with the latest round of storms. At this time of year, we try to work with our customers to prepare them for these conditions. As a security company, we actually surprise our customers with how much we can help them secure their home against weather-related threats. Of course, many people see our focus as lying in creating fire and burglary-related security. Obviously, we certainly provide these important services in spades. However, we also work with customers to provide whole-home security, even against the elements. In today’s post, we share how we can help you with securing your home against winter weather!
First, we’ll show you how our environmental sensors can help you catch a potential weather emergency as early as possible. Obviously, this goes a long way towards minimizing the damage caused to your home during extreme weather. From there, we’ll show you a couple Alarm.com devices that can help with securing your home against winter weather. Specifically, we’ll look at the Alarm.com thermostat, which can alert you to extreme temperatures in your home and even allow you to control your home’s environment remotely. Finally, we’ll feature the Alarm.com Water Valve + Meter, one of the most powerful pieces of equipment that we can install to help alert you to weather-related issues and even stop them in their tracks. Now, let’s dive in with a focus on tying environmental sensors in to your home’s alarm.
Using Environmental Sensors to Gear up for Extreme Weather
Our environmental sensors provide a valuable early alert to conditions that could create a disaster if not addressed in a timely fashion. We offer sensors that create alerts for environmental issues that have the potential to cause damage to your property. For example, our “hi-lo temperature” detectors can create an alert if your home experiences dangerously hot or cold conditions. This can help alert you to frozen pipes or HVAC equipment failures. Additionally, we offer flood sensors that can detect the presence of water wherever we install them. In fact, we even offer wireless sensors — such as the one pictured — that detect both dangerously low temperatures and the presence of water. Environmental sensors can help you detect and address these issues before they create a mess that takes a significant amount of time and money to repair.
This wireless freeze flood sensor by Interlogix can alert you to both frozen pipes or water in your basement.
In addition to the security these sensors create, they also provide an unexpected benefit. In our post sharing 5 Surprising Home Security System Benefits, we explain that insurance companies base their rates on the perceived risk of an incident at your home or business. Therefore, providers frequently offer rate discounts for taking measures to proactively address these risks. Often, installing environmental sensors can trigger just this type of discount! We encourage our customers to ask their insurance company about this potential. The ability to add this important security and save money can make installing this equipment an easy decision! Next up, let’s look at a couple smart home devices that add unique weather-related security.
Extreme Weather Security through Alarm.com Smart Home Devices
Over the past several years, customers have begun leaning heavily on cellular dialers to monitor their alarm systems. These dialers allow customers without phones to experience the security of a monitored burglar alarm. Additionally, cellular dialers can act as a backup for customers who do have phones. This ensures alarm communication in the event the home’s phone lines go down. Finally, an interactive cellular dialer, such as ours powered by Alarm.com, packs even more features. For example, interactive cell monitoring customers can control their alarm systems with their cell phones. This feature alone has helped make Alarm.com our most popular alarm monitoring option.
More importantly for this post, the Alarm.com cellular dialer also acts as a Z-Wave smart home hub. This allows us to install Z-Wave smart home appliances that you can control with the same smartphone app that you use to arm and disarm your home security system. Moreover, any Z-Wave connected devices can also send you push and text notifications. This means that environment-related smart home devices can send you important alerts about weather-related issues. In this section, we’ll take a look at a couple of these devices. First, we’ll focus on our Alarm.com smart thermostat. This device allows you to both control and track the environment on your property at all times. From there, we’ll look at the Alarm.com Water Valve + Meter, one of the most powerful environmental security devices the industry has ever seen.
The Alarm.com Smart Thermostat
Like other smart home appliances, the Alarm.com Smart Thermostat allows for both remote control and instant event notifications. In this case, the “control” feature entails the ability to set the desired temperature at your home from a smartphone or other internet-connected device. This feature allows you to manually adjust the temperature at any time. Furthermore, it allows you to set temperature schedules based on your own regular activity. For example, businesses often set their thermostats to cool down at closing time and heat back up again an hour before the first employee comes in.
Additionally, this device also provides instant alerts in the case of temperatures outside of a customizable range. Therefore, you will receive an alert for either a dangerously high or low temperature. Finally, this device can track HVAC efficiency to let you know when you may need repairs. For example, an alert can tell you that your HVAC equipment has to work harder than usual to maintain your desired temperatures. Obviously, this knowledge can help you call for repairs before the issue leads to major damage in your home. Next, let’s look at another unique Alarm.com smart device that provides valuable winter weather security.
The Alarm.com Valve + meter can both detect and help prevent water damage with one compact piece of equipment.
The New Alarm.com Water Valve + Meter
At the beginning of last year, Alarm.com announced the release of their new Water Valve + Meter. This new offering works with customers’ existing Alarm.com water sensors to provide proactive security against flooding. If you install this device and one of your water sensors detects a leak, this piece of equipment will shut down your home’s water. This can provide an immeasurable amount of home security and peace of mind during long absences from your home over the winter.
Moreover, the water meter helps provide homeowners with unique insights into their water use! This can help you address inefficiency’s in your property’s infrastructure, as well as help you address areas where you could cut back on water usage. During this time of year, this device provides important winter weather security as well. After all, your water usage is greatly affected if any of your pipes freeze. If this condition does not get addressed, this can lead to bursting pipes as well. The Valve + Meter can catch this danger and send you a notification to allow you to check in on the situation.
Putting it All Together and Securing Your Home Against Winter Weather
We hope that this post allows you to see how we can aid your efforts in securing your home against winter weather. As always, we encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related concerns. Additionally, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We’ve long offered complimentary security audits and equipment quotes for both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can address your existing security concerns. Moreover, we can also make recommendations based on our own observations of your property. Together, we can create a complete plan to keep your home as safe and secure as possible from the worst of whatever Mother Nature can dole out!