Who’s watching your home’s heat when you’re not home?  It can only take a few hours without heat for vulnerable water pipes in poorly insulated walls or under a cabinet to freeze and break when the outside temperatures.  When pipes freeze and break, an 1/8 inch hole in a water pipe can spew over 150 gallons per day.  Destroyed sheet rock, walls, flooring, carpeting, personal belongings, broken plumbing fixtures in addition to mold growth or electrical fires are what can accompany frozen / broken water piping.

The CES Secure Heat Loss of Heat / Low Temperature Monitor can give you peace of mind during those cold winter nights. 

CES installs the Secure Heat monitor at no expense.  The only cost is the $89 annual monitoring fee.  All we need is access to a phone line that is operable all year. 

• Notifies CES 24 hours per day if the temperature drops below 40 degrees in your home
• A technician is dispatched to your home to correct the problem long before your pipes freeze
• CES will keep your home’s key (and alarm code) securely on file  
• The Secure Heat dialer can be connected to your home’s burner and will alert us of a system failure before the temperature drops
• The UL approved dialer will call us weekly with a diagnostic self-check as well as the battery power level remaining
• In event of a downed phone line during a storm, the unit keeps attempting to call CES until it receives an acknowledgment from our office computer

1. Your home must remain on automatic delivery with CES (propane or fuel oil).
2. CES must keep a key to your home on file (we won’t hunt neighbors with the key at 3 am in January!)
3. You have a telephone operable all year.
4. Stay within acceptable credit terms for fuel deliveries.

Q:  Why not just get the low-temp blinking light at the hardware store for
      the front window and my neighbor will watch it for me?

A:  Are you kidding?  You trust that your neighbor is going to stay home 24 hours  
      a day in the winter and will want the responsibility of watching for light
      blinking?  And if they happened to miss it, you hate the neighbor and your
      home is still destroyed.  (and if the bulb burns out or gets unplugged?)

Q:  Does CES charge to send a technician if a low heat is signaled?

A:   Yes.  We will priority dispatch a service tech to your home to make sure the  
       heat is functioning 24 hours per day.  Thermostats set too low (below 50   
       degrees) will be charged for the service call.

Q:  What if the electric power goes out – will the monitor call CES with low
      heat signal?

A:   Yes – the unit dials out as long as there’s a working phone line.  If we find the electric out, the technician will contact the office and every attempt will be made to contact you to discuss emergency options if we fear an extended outage of power.  We may be able to assist with temporary heating or recommend an emergency plumber to drain your house immediately.

Fuel delivery drivers work hard during the winter months to keep tanks filled, so your assistance with helping them do their job is always appreciated.  A few tips to help us get your delivery to you on time…

• Keep driveways plowed & sanded.  There’s a world of difference between NYC and the mountains, so we can’t recommend enough contracting with a local plow company to maintain your drive on a regular basis.  This is important for not only fuel deliveries, but also emergency vehicles and to give your home the ‘lived in look’ so burglars won’t think you’re away.  Special trips off our normal delivery route due to unplowed driveways can result in costly extra charges.
  
  
• Keep walkways accessible to your propane tank or oil fill pipe.
  
  
• Mark your underground propane tank or fill pipe with a wooden stake so our drivers can locate it in the deep snow.
  
  
• If you’re on automatic delivery, give us a call if you notice your tank’s gauge below ¼ or if your consumption changes due to added family members or heat left up all day – give us a call to adjust your delivery schedule.
  
  
• SAFETY REMINDER:  Keep snow away from furnace or appliance vents if near ground level to avoid deadly carbon monoxide from entering your home.