Frozen pipes are a nightmare during subzero temperatures in the deep cold of winter. While there are a plethora of ways to keep pipes from freezing – such as turning on your sink faucet to slightly drip with lukewarm water, and keeping your place warm above 68°F, sometimes that’s not enough. If you live in colder climates, the danger of your frozen pipes bursting is more of a reality than any of us care to admit, let alone the mess and damage it can create. What if there’s a better way? Well, there is, and you have plenty of time to prepare.
Basically, you can create your own alarm that buzzes with a flashing LED to alert you if your pipes are in freezing temperature ranges. Here to the rescue with his awesome skills, Jason Poel Smith has tossed together a frozen pipe alarm video via Make (featured above), and has detailed written instructions over at Instructables.
All you need are some common electronic materials, a little bit of soldering skills, and programming abilities. Honestly, it doesn’t look that intense to make compared to other programming projects I’ve come across.
The basics you need are an Arduino Microcontroller, a thermistor, a resistor, an LED light, a Piezo buzzer, a circuit board, and a few other common electronic items.
Like I said, if you have electronic components and a little bit of savvy going on, you can pull of this project. Even if you don’t, it’s a good and practical challenge you’ll be glad you did during a deep freeze.
With a little bit of coding, soldering, and sensor calibration, you mount your sensor right by the pipes. This part may require you to drill a hole into your wall depending on where you to plan to set up the frozen pipe alarm. If your pipes reach the danger freezing temperatures (you set this up), you will get an audio and visual signal before a potential frozen catastrophe turns bitter.
Take a look at the complete guide to make your own frozen pipe alarm by clicking the link below.
Read MorePhoto by: Jason Poel Smith | Instructables
