What do you shut off when leaving for a trip

[caver]

Many years ago a co-worker left for a couple days and came home to a ruptured water heater and the associated damage it caused. He was surprised when I said if I'm gone for more than about 2 days I shut the water off.
That has evolved in that now if I'm gone camping for over two weeks I shut the refrigerator off, HVAC, unplug garage door opener, water heater and even the HVAC. A long time ago I would just have a friend come buy and check on the place every few days but as the trips moved up to 3 weeks I didn't want to bother them. I'm retired now so the trip can be as long or short as I want.
Curious in what others do.

[gmckenzie]

Adjust the thermostat and make sure the garage door is unplugged. If I turned off the water, my sprinklers wouldn't work and the lawn would be dead in a week. I do make sure all my cameras are working and set to annoy me if someone walks by them.

[jimcatinmi]

Well now you have me rethinking it but we dont shut anything off .

[ppine]

I turn off all anxiety. Then I turn up my interest in seeing new places. I even out my ability to get along with my sweetheart and turn up the ability to be patient with my dogs and hit the road.

[spoon059]

I shut off boiler and water supply. Turn thermostat either up to 80 or down to 50.

In the winter I'll open the lowest sink faucet to drain water out of the pipes. That way if they do freeze they are empty and don't burst.

[Scottiemom]

Here is Florida we shut off our water. We have a tankless water heater so no worries there. We set our T-stat on 80 and set the humidifier back. That was what our Hvac guy told us. If we don't keep a/c on, we will come back to mold. Don't want that.

Dale

[T18skyguy]

I just had a real close call. I have an under the sink Culligan water filter that runs to a spout near the faucet. The filter burst at the bottom and I had full line pressure under the sink. Luckily I was home. The damage would of been huge,and we had just come back from a vacation 1 day prior. Never again. Water will be off from here on always.

[bpounds]

We just turn off the HVAC. But our climate is mild, so there is no danger of freezing pipes ever. Water has to stay on unless during winter, to keep the lawn sprinklers working. Not on a well, so no pump to deal with. I would like to save water heater cost (natural gas), but I think I've only done that once. The water heater stats are so finicky that I am reluctant to mess with the control. Anyway, the gas used is a tiny cost when no hot water is being used.

I do have the valve necessary to leave irrigation on and house water off. You've got me thinking that I should do that. Blown washing machine or dishwasher hoses would be the main concern, and a huge mess if it happened.

[camperdave]

Years ago after a trip our water heater failed. I figure it was not a coincidence that it failed right after I shut it down for a trip, so I no longer do that... My main water line shut off is under the house (or at the curb stop, but we're not supposed to mess with that) so I'm not shutting that off.

I set the thermostat to 55 heat, 85 cool and call it good. I'm on a big hill, even if I had a water break it would run down the hill to the storm drain below. And now that we have AMI water meters, any day I use 3x our normal usage I'll get an automated email from the water district so I could have someone run over and check it out for me.

[donut_dave]

turn off water pump. don't want to take the chance returning to a flooded house. also turn off water heater. if gone for a week or more i unplug the water softener. control furnace and ac with my phone.

[fj12ryder]

Up until I retired I used to travel for 3 weeks at a time, almost every year, plus a week or two skiing in the winter. My routine was to walk out the door and lock it behind me. End of story. I did that from mid-70's up until 2002 when I started RV'ing. Never, ever had anything happen: house didn't burn down, house didn't flood, house was never broken into, just nothing whatsoever.

Now when we leave for who knows how long, I turn off the water, then walk out the door and lock it behind me.

[Bumpyroad]

ktmrfs wrote:


Also when gone, the garage door opener is on a leviton controller so that the garage door can't be opened between 10pm and 8 am.

my garage door opener was plugged into an outlet box adjacent to the motor, etc. and I just changed that to an extension cord that I ran to a lower outlet box. unplug that cord and that door won't budge.

bumpy

[ktmrfs]

If we are gone for more than a few days, the water to the house is turned off, gas HW heater gets turned down to pilot, recirculating hot water pump goes off, and as extra precaution water to the washing machine turned off. Also instahot goes off and thermostat goes to "eco" mode to keep temps above 50F or below 85F. Also unplug all the tool battery chargers etc. in the garage. Lights automatically go to a random evening mode when we leave the house based on cell phone location, and I turn on the alarm system.

I've had two friends that had washing machine hoses break while gone, another that had a toilet tank reservoir crack and leak. Enough problems that turning the water off is top of the list.

To make it easy to turn water on and off I replaced the original water valve to the house with a quarter turn valve located near the furnace and water heater.

Also when gone, the garage door opener is on a leviton controller so that the garage door can't be opened between 10pm and 8 am.

We have a neighbor that will occasionally check the house if we are gone more than a week or so.

[BarabooBob]

We leave the pets home and have a friend that stays there part of the time when we are gone. So nothing gets turned off.
We do however have a leak sensor in the basement that is wired to turn off the water pump if it detects water in the basement. I have sensors near the spot where the water comes into the house, and next to the pressure tank, furnace and water heater. Right above the water entrance is the kitchen sink and right above the furnace and 2 of the upstairs bathroom so if anything leaks, the well gets turned off. The pressure tank only hold 25 gallons of water so the amount of water that can leak is minimal. I also have a floor drain next to the furnace.

[DrewE]

Seattle Steve wrote:
My wife worked in insurance claims her whole career, and says the most common claim by far is water damage from broken washing machine water hose, and distant second is ice maker water damage, either a broken line or malfunction of the shut-off after it fills the tray. The home doesn't even have to be unoccupied--it frequently happens at night.

I do change out my washing machine water hoses every five years, but I don't really do anything (other than adjust the thermostat) when we leave. Our neighbors are great, and check the house daily.

Some years ago I installed a lever action dual valve for the clothes washer, and turn the water off there whenever I'm not washing clothes. It takes all of a couple seconds with one of those valves, and becomes part of the process of operating the washer. It's much, much handier than a pair of globe valves that have to be turned a couple full revolutions each to operate them.