| There are three types of alarms. One tells you when power goes out, one when the temperature goes above a set temperature, and another if water is detected on the floor. So electrical failures, equipment failures, and flooding are your choices for buying an alarm or two. If you experience a freezer power failure (outlet/component/circuit) the power alarm would sound, but if all the power in the house goes out, you'd get the alarm too. If you are concerned that the freezer mechanism or a component would fail, with or without a power failure, then the temperature alarm would be best. If your basement floods then the alarm detecting water below it would be good all around (that type is usually sold for use under washing machines, but it works great for freezers where contents would begin to melt and drip on the floor if the freezer stopped freezing). Since your freezer is so old, any of these things could happen. And since well-insulated freezers keep contents somewhat cold even with power out for several days, it may be awhile before a water alarm sounds so for the money, the temperature alarm would be the best choice, IMO. Although that type can be dicey for auto-defrost freezers because they warm up and cool down in cycles so having minimum and maximum temperature settings on an alarm is an important feature. Do some on-line searching. There aren't that many alarm manufacturers but the prices are all over the place for the same thing. And, calculate shipping costs too. You could run yourself ragged searching locally. Common search terms: freezer alarm, basement watchdog alarm, water detection alarm, temperature alarm, power failure or outage alarm. Nancy |
