How do people secure their homes while traveling (especially in winter)?

[Rich]

There’s lots of very good information to be found in this thread. I’m chief of police for a small Cape Cod town. It’s remarkable how many homes in my little town (3,100 people live here year round, summer around 20,000) suffer burst pipes over a winter. I’m having my dispatcher research the exact number for me as I type this, as this thread convinced me the subject would be a good one for public dissemination.

The damage that burst pipes do to a home, especially when the water is flowing from an upper floor, is staggering. When I leave for a weekend I shut my water pump and the valve leading from the water tank. Better than nothing. When I retire I’m going to do a few things to protect my home:

Have an alarm installed (and this is a very safe town, really). Include a temperature sensor in the system.

Hire a person to check my home on a regular basis. Nothing is as frustrating as when my guys and fire dept personnel show up to a flooded home, manage to shut off the water supply (we often have to break in to shut down the water pump), and have no one local to contact to start dealing with the situation.

One question for members of the forum. What’s RV anti-freeze? Would this stuff be OK for a septic system to tolerate?

Thank,

Rich

 

[Rich]

One last thought. Whatever you do prior to leaving for the winter, write it down. That way, when you return, you can easily "reassemble in reverse order."

Rich

 

[Rich]

Since 2002 my town has had 34 homes which suffered burst frozen pipes. Two years saw ten such incidents (the worst two years) and since the start of 2007 we've had four reports of burst pipes. As the weather here has not been above freezing for over a week I suspect the first day we have a meaningful thaw will show us that we have additional homes with the problem.


Rich

 

[DW]

I've got a second home in the mountains of northern Arizona, which sits unoccupied for months at a time in the winter. I shut off the pump, close the main water supply valve, and drain the supply pipes. I also leave the cabinet doors open under the sinks, to let some warm air in and near the drains. I close off the rooms that have no plumbing, then leave the heat on at 50 F. That heats the core of the house, including the area with the pump and storage tank. The heat is a propane stove which works even in an electrical outage.

My main worry is if the stove should fail. Then I'd freeze the traps, toilets, storage tank, and hot-water heater. The stove has never failed...yet. We did have a 6-week power failure this winter (a squirrel committed suicide on the transformer supplying our house). By the time we returned, our freezer/refrigerators were interesting, to say the least. The propane stove kept things from freezing and just warm enough for the the material in the freezers to experience reincarnation in a fairly disgusting form.

I've seen ads for devices that will sense a low temperature or a power failure, then telephone you and tell you about the problem. The one I see most advertised is "TemperatureGuard".

Does anyone have any experience with these things?

 

[AltaRed]

One question for members of the forum. What’s RV anti-freeze? Would this stuff be OK for a septic system to tolerate?

Thank,

Rich

RV antifreeze is an antifreeze used by recreation vehicle owners for their potable water systems.... meaning it is not harmful (well, I wouldn't drink any), but means that once drained out, it will not cause humans harm. On that basis, I don't believe it is harmful to septic systems, but may be detrimental in large quantities. A typical home that has been properly drained of water (including fridge and laundry washer lines) should not need more than 2 or 3 gallons of the stuff...if that.

I would ask an RV dealer or even a plumbing contractor that question regarding harm to septic tanks.

 

[Martha]

In our old cabin when we would winterize we would put rv antifreeze in the traps. The amount involved should not harm septic systems. We had a gravity drain system so it was easy to drain the fresh water system and could do so in a matter of minutes.

One of the upsides to living in our apartment when we leave during the winter we have a trusted tenant take care of the building when we are gone.

 

[Rich]

OK, this is weird. This morning the water purifier unit (not sure of its correct name) went on. Shortly after I went down to the basement to get something. A line from the unit (a translucent plastic one) had just sprung a pin-hole leak and was making the whole floor wet. Turned the by-pass valve and it eventually stopped leaking. Plumber coming, but man, talk about timing.

Don't want to think about what would have happened had we been away for a couple of days/weeks....

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Sounds like the drain line for flushing the membrane. Its just a piece of regular flexible plastic line and should just have a hose clamp holding it in on either end. When we had a softener i replaced that every few years 'just because'.

 

[Outtahere]

Anything can happen while you're away. We spent two weeks in FL, the 4th day there my dad called to tell us the furnace was acting up. The forcast was for below 0 weather so he set up space heaters in the cellar and the house (dog wouldn't stay with them) and had it fixed the next day. I can't even imagine the mess we would have come home to had we boarded the dog and just left. As much as dh complains about living next to FIL more times than not he's grateful he's there.

 

[ZMAN]

We have hot water heat. So it needs to be left on. Woudn't those pipes burst as well if the house froze?

 

[farmerEd]

We have hot water heat. So it needs to be left on. Woudn't those pipes burst as well if the house froze?

Yes, in a worst case scenario. Sometimes FHW systems have anti-freeze instead of water, but unless you specifically called for it, its probably water. If the heat goes out long enough, your whole system can freeze up. Happened to me in my first house 20 years ago...not fun.

 

[Rich]

Sounds like the drain line for flushing the membrane. Its just a piece of regular flexible plastic line and should just have a hose clamp holding it in on either end. When we had a softener i replaced that every few years 'just because'.

That's what it was. The plumber fixed it by cutting the bad part of the line and reconnecting it. He told me it would only have leaked while the unit was working. Still....

 

[UncleHoney]

Hello,

I'd really like to be able to monitor the inside temperature remotely, but I haven't found a good solution that's priced right.

Jim

I didn't read this thread till this morning so maybe I'm a little late, usually the case duh.

For an inexensive way to monitor house temperature try this. Find an OLD mechanical thermostat, one without mercury contacts, that you can set for a temperature you would never expect the house to get to, like 45.

Wire a 470 ohm resistor in series with the thermostat and connect it to your phone lines, only takes two wires. Locate the thermostat where it gets good air circulation. Remember to set the thermostat for a temperature you would never expect in the house.

The 470 ohm resistor is the secret to the whole thing. If the thermostat ever closes and the 470 ohm resistor is connected across the phone lines it will look like a phone is off the hook and any caller will get a busy signal.

I used the system for years to check on my parents house when they were in Florida every winter. Sure beat driving 12 miles to see if the furnace was working.

UH

 

[DW]

For an inexensive way to monitor house temperature try this. Find an OLD mechanical thermostat...

Clever. I bet I've even got an old bimetal-strip thermometer sitting around somewhere.

Thanks.

 

[Nords]

Wire a 470 ohm resistor

Am I the only engineering curmudgeon wondering where we'd even go to buy a 470-ohm resistor these days, let alone find someone under the age of 40 to show us the color chart to verify it's the right resistance?

Sometimes when I'm stuck in Radio Shack (while my teen oohs & aaahs over the cell phones) I'll drift over to the electronics supplies (what's left of them) and ask the first clerk to offer assistance to please gimme a MOSFET for an IC breadboard. On a bad day I'll strike out the entire team, including the shift manager who thinks I want to go to a grocery store...

Ironically I bet any of those people could sell me a $69.99 black box that'll phone me when the house temperature drops below 45 degrees.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Tell me about it...I spent half a day looking for a capacitor to replace a bad one on a board in one of gabes toys. Two radio shacks and I was then sent to a tv repairman who had "a lot of parts". No dice there either.

Made me wish for the days of living up the street from You Blew It Electronics on rte 128 in MA...

The good news is that when I called to see if I could buy a new board or module, Leap Frog replaced the whole thing for free, even though it was out of warranty.