I recently bought a farm house with basement. All the water pipes are in the basement. I'm thinking of putting a 2nd thermostat for the heater in the basement and set it at 35 degrees to keep pipes from freezing when no one is at the house. I haven't been able to find one. Most don't go below 40 or 45. Any ideas?

Well 35 is to close to 32 or 31 freezing. I would use the ones you found that goes down to 40. What if there is a cold snap and its 35 at your stat and the pipe on the other side of the basement is 28? There's good reason of 40 and not 35 stats You have a farm house and how well is the insulation and you just bought it. I would be Leary at setting it at even 40. I'm in the farm capital of the U.S. Lanc pa. Amishville. I know how scary the farm houses are in insulation most are nothing but solid brick walls or stone walls Stick with the 40 please. I know you want to save money but at what cost if a pipe freezes and burst and thousands of dollars of damage. This is not to be messed with be safe 45 min. and test it before you leave. See how much degrees difference from rooms to rooms. I know that's not the answer your looking for but all I see here is trouble or Major damage do to frozen pipes. Hope I stilled helped Happy Holidays!

You cannot use a secondary stat in line with your current stat.

A mouse trap by any other name... maybe just set your current thermostat to 45-50 and fuggetaboutit...