LOL, my wife would not go near my pelt rig unless it was on.

I ran it 24/7 most of the time anyway.
Perhaps the easiest way to rig a fail safe pelt setup is to use relays to turn on the pelt and waterpump, controled by the 12 volt line of the computers PSU. Then you can use Motherboard Monitor to shut down the whole rig if the CPU temps get to high.
I have always fired up the pump and pelt PSU for about 20 seconds prior to starting the computer. This lets the coldplate get below zero so the computer will boot with a high overclock. A compunurse probe on the edge coldplate is a good way to monitor temps.
If you choose to go the relay route, you can still delay the computers boot. After pushing the power button on the PC, hold the reset button in until the coldplate reaches the desired temp.