So the Winter Blast has once again visited North Texas. What started out as a string of really nice warm days turned into another icy nightmare; but this time it was complicated with a power outage. As luck would have it, the power outages always come in the middle of the night; just like dogs always seem to get sick on a weekend.

Last year, I had to pull the plugs on the pool as the February deep freeze hit Texas. I didn’t do this as a winterizing requirement; I did it because I was having shoulder surgery and knew that I would be unable to take care of the pool should a power outage happen in the middle of the night. So it seemed the most reasonable thing to do given the circumstances.

In my last post I talked about our MarCELL unit. Back in the late 80’s when we started owning travel trailers, nothing like this was available. If it had been available, I would have purchased it immediately.

The great thing about this unit is that it notifies you if there is a power outage in your travel trailer. Why is this important? Well, if you travel with pets, you take a risk every time you leave them alone in the trailer. Even if it is only for a short period of time. Campgrounds are notorious for having power outages which in the heat of the summer will quickly spell trouble; if not death for your pet. The insulating value of trailers will not protect your pet for long if your AC unit is not running.

Likewise, even brand new units being produced can and do have electrical or appliance (AC) failures. So if your power is on to the unit but the AC unit fails, your pet is in the same situation as if you had a complete power outage.

That is the advantage of the MarCELL unit. It sends alerts to you based on settings that you create for temperature and humidity. So that means you get alerted for both power outages and for exceeding your Temperature and Humidity set points. You can also pair MarCELL’s s-puck water sensors to the unit as well if you want to catch any leak that may occur. As soon as it detects any water you will get an alert.

Alerts are structured so you can be notified by phone, text, or email. I chose Text and email initially but now have changed that to Text and Phone call.

So what does any of this have to do with the winter weather in Texas? Well, my unit is still in the trailer monitoring temperature and power. At his point though, I am really more concerned about power outages. That is because the power to the Travel Trailer (where the MarCELL unit is located) is coming from my shop. My shop power also supplies the electricity than runs the pool equipment. So, if the power goes out in the shop and its below freezing I only have a short amount of time to get my backup generator running so my pool is not ruined. That is exactly what happened last night.

Here is an example of the notifications I received via text message from the MarCELL unit.

MarCELL Text Alert

Total time to get dressed, unlock the shop, move the generator outside and get it running was about thirty minutes. That probably saved me hundreds of dollars in damage had the water lines frozen. Meanwhile in the neighborhood, some slept through the power outage, and that used to be my biggest concern – not anymore.

So as you can see, the MarCELL unit serves a dual purpose for us. Most importantly, It protects our Sable Shepherd Eva when we camp (her life is much more important than the pool), but it also protects my pool when the trailer is not being used in the freezing weather. Now, I could of course just move the MarCELL unit into the shop during the months we don’t camp but that would just be an extra step since all power comes from the shop.

If the MarCELL unit looks like a good option for you I would recommend you read our review here. For more on the cost and functionality, you can always visit the MarCELL site here and use the code TTN20 at checkout to get $20.00 off.

For now North Texas will have a brief warm up that will melt the ice off the trees and power lines here, but Saturday is predicted to have more freezing rain. Here we go again.

Please be safe out there!