Home > Consumer Reviews > Control Products FA-B-CCA Basic FreezeAlarm

A great little device that I will count on to monitor our other home this winter. I emailed a question about using the device to the service center and had a response within a few hours (not bad for online support).

This alarm doesn't do much, but it does just what I needed. We have a second home which is unoccupied much of the year, but which we leave heated to 55 deg. Here in New England the temperature can get down pretty low. The town actually requires us to keep the water on at least a trickle all year, because the water lines can end up below the freeze line. All I needed to do was plug the unit into an open phone jack, key in my cell number and hit the test button. My cell rang a couple of seconds later an I got a recorded message saying there was a temperature problem at the house. There is a battery backup in case the power goes out so the FreezeAlarm can still call out.

Other units, which cost quite a bit more, will call to more than one number and even turn up the heat before you arrive. This seemed like overkill to me so we got the basic unit. It keeps calling the programed number every two hours (though there is an option to do it more frequently) until the phone is answered. They give you an option to "really" test the unit, by placing it in a refrigerator. Doing that might expose the unit to damaging condensation, so I didn't try.

for a bare bones freeze alert unit, this one is excellent. I tested it to see if it would sense the cold temperature outside (was in the 30's); it worked and called the number I'd programmed. I think it needs a longer than one minute send time for its message. I had it call my cell phone and I needed to change the number of rings and the length of my cell message to assure I'd get the alarm call. (Or keep the phone off which wasn't always practical.) Other than that, it was just what I needed for the price. Customer/tech support was fine, too. At $[...] rebate it was a very good deal.

It is a great device. We brought it to our country home where the electric goes out and we were worried about our heating system in the winter. Now we can enjoy our winter where ever we are since the Freeze Alarm will let us know if there is a problem.

Purchased the Freeze Alarm prior to our trip to Florida. The first week we were called on our cell phone alerting us of a problem with our heating system. Outside temp was down to 15, called our plumber who replaced gas valve. Without the alert whole house would have froze breaking pipes. Great investment.