Winter is coming! Is your home prepared for the approaching season?
Preparing your home for the changing of seasons usually involves insulating it to better store heat, checking your heating and air conditioning equipment, and clearing drainages and gutters, among others. However, one unlikely feature in your home that you also need to prepare is your smart home security system.
If you own an Abode smart home security system, not only will you benefit from the comprehensive protection it provides, it can also be your unlikely ally when winter comes. In this article, we explore the ways your Abode system can help you in colder weather.
Extremely cold temperatures can cause tremendous headaches for homeowners. Every winter, around 250,000 homes experience water pipes freezing and breaking, according to State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. This means expensive repair and repiping costs for homeowners by springtime
If your water pipes have leaks in them, it’s very easy for water inside it to freeze and break the rest of the pipe network. It’s highly important that these leaks be detected and the pipes repaired so that water would not be stuck in these pipes by the time winter comes.
To help you detect the early signs of water leaks, install an Abode Water Leak Sensor in your home. Once paired to your Abode system, the sensor can send a notification to your smartphone once a leak is found so you can immediately do the necessary repairs to your pipes before the onset of colder weather.
Just like any glass, windows can become brittle and break in extremely low temperatures. So it’s not out of the ordinary for glass to break during blizzards. If your windows break during the night amid a winter storm, you and your family could be exposed to freezing temperatures and experience hypothermia and frostbite.
To be alerted to glass windows breaking during blizzard conditions, install an Abode Acoustic Glass Break Sensor in your room. Once your glass breaks, the acoustic sensor picks up the noise from the glass breaking and notifies you through your smartphone or through a siren in your Abode system. In this way, you can immediately prevent cold air from rushing inside your home by covering the broken windows, if not seek better shelter.
Weather conditions can be unpredictable especially during winter. If you lose heat inside your home, you could end up suffering from extreme cold especially if you don’t have indoor heating. A smart thermostat is extremely helpful so you can gauge how cold it is inside your home and adopt the necessary measures to stay warm.
The Abode Multi Sensor does just that as it monitors temperature and humidity inside your home and once installed and paired to your Abode system, it can send you a notification to your smartphone whenever indoor temperatures go up or down to extreme levels so that you can take the appropriate steps to keep yourself warm during extreme winter conditions.
Electric heaters are crucial to staying warm and cozy during the winter. Not only do they provide much needed heat in the winter, it’s also portable, enabling you to use it anywhere there is an electrical outlet. The only disadvantage is the huge electrical consumption these appliances may incur.
With the Abode Smart Home Power Switch paired to your Abode system, you can manage the electrical consumption of your indoor electric heater. Just plug in your heater to the power switch and you can automatically turn it on and off straight from your smartphone. If you are subscribed to an Abode plan that allows for automations, you can even create an automation that automatically turns on the heater when your Abode Multi Sensor detects that indoor temperature has gone down to freezing levels. Having this nifty device makes for a cost-efficient use of indoor heating equipment.
Just like broken windows, doors left open during the night, even just for a little, can allow cold winter air to penetrate your home and put you and your family’s life in jeopardy due to exposure to extremely low temperatures. It’s only common sense to check every door before you sleep to prevent this from happening, but sometimes, we tend to forget checking them because we are either too tired or too busy to even bother.
Adding an Abode Door Window Sensor to your Abode system can change this. Install the sensor to your doors and windows, and pair it to your Abode system, so that you can be notified on your smartphone whenever a door or window has been left open. You no longer need to check every door or window to find out if they’ve been left open and you can just go to the specific door or window to close it before going to sleep at night.
Winter can be a comfortable if not harrowing experience depending on how prepared you are. As winter approaches, increase your readiness for the extreme conditions to come with the help of your Abode system.
