Need advice on being away for 6 months

[LateToFIRE]

We have a similar set-up, advice would be:

- Have pool shut down/closed - why pay for half year of servicing when you're not there
- Shut off water (too many horror stories)
- Have someone check house at minimum weekly - when you're gone insects and critters like to take up residence
- Have mail forwarded
- Inform neighbors so they know you're not there
- Consider emptying and shutting off fridge, icemaker, water-heater, etc.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

 

[COcheesehead]

Just curious why would folks get water sensors when you can just shut off the water and drain the system?

 

[Ronstar]

Just curious why would folks get water sensors when you can just shut off the water and drain the system?

I do shut off the water on any overnight or longer trip. I got my sensors mainly for when I'm at home. Our water heater, well pressure tank, iron filter, and water softener are in the basement and I don't visit them every day to see how they are doing. So the sensors let me know if there is a leak.

Last water heater leak was detected and gave me notification probably within minutes of the leak starting.

 

[COcheesehead]

I do shut off the water on any overnight or longer trip. I got my sensors mainly for when I'm at home. Our water heater, well pressure tank, iron filter, and water softener are in the basement and I don't visit them every day to see how they are doing. So the sensors let me know if there is a leak.

Last water heater leak was detected and gave me notification probably within minutes of the leak starting.

That makes sense. When I had a tank water heater, it had a metal skirt around the base that had a hose leading to a drain. Today we have a tankless so I am less concerned.
Funny story my neighbor owns a disaster recovery business. I asked him if he cleans up after water events inside homes. He said all the time. I said so you turn off your water when you leave. He replied no, but that’s probably a good idea.

 

[Lemonade]

When my parents left for long periods, watering the plants and feeding the birds were things they wanted me to come over to do.
Are there any activities or memberships that you need to cancel prior to leaving? Are there dental appointments on the calendar that need to be rescheduled?

 

[OldShooter]

Just curious why would folks get water sensors when you can just shut off the water and drain the system?

"Just" makes it sound pretty easy. For most houses it's not.

If the house is on city water, it's pretty easy to shut the valve and open some faucets to depressurize the system. Still relatively easy with a well, but the pressure tank also has to be depressurized and may have its own drain.

"Drain the system" is another matter. For our last lake home, we could let it freeze because all the (copper) piping had been modified to be downhill and to have no air locks. (For example, a pull-down kitchen faucet has a loop of hose underneath that will air-lock both hot and cold, preventing them from draining when the faucet is opened. BTDT)In the end, I could drain the house by opening three drain valves in the basement (hot, cold, and power-off/water heater tank) then opening all the faucets upstairs. Then all the drains (bathrooms, kitchens) and all the toilets (bowls and tanks) got doses of RV antifreeze. But most people will not have this kind of piping, so "Drain the system" becomes "blow out the system," which takes time and a capable compressor. For houses with PEX, there is also the risk of air locks where the tubing sags.

If there is any risk of freezing at the OP's "midwest" home, he'll have to do this or pay to heat the house in the winter -- which is not completely foolproof.

 

[COcheesehead]

I turn a handle in the garage and go to the farthest faucet and turn it on until the water stops. Ba da boom ba da bing.

 

[OldShooter]

I turn a handle in the garage and go to the farthest faucet and turn it on until the water stops. Ba da boom ba da bing.

Obviously you're not worried about pipes freezing.

 

[COcheesehead]

Obviously you're not worried about pipes freezing.

My pipes run in a conditioned crawl space.

 

[Northforker]

As far as the water goes. TURN IT OFF at the meter. A burst pipe or a leaky connection that crops up can cause $$$$$$ in a very short amount of time.

Can't help with the pool, my wife would tell me to fill it in and plant flowers! LOL

We turn the hot water heater breaker off
We turn the stove breaker off.

We have our mail held at the PO, now they have a 30 day max hold rule, must be renewed every month, so our daughter picks it up once a month and a five minute phone call narrows down what needs to forwarded to about 5% of the mail.

Empty frig and turn it off.

If your security system has a freezer warning for a deep freezer, install that.

unplug or disable your electric garage door opener.

put 2 or 3 lights on Alexa timers.

Unplug all TV's and appliances. (Voltage surges or lightning strikes)

Notify local Law Enforcement of your extended absence.

Have someone take care of your lawn and pick up anything left on the porch.

Stop newspaper delivery.

We have outside motion detector lights on the entire perimeter of the house, that come on for 30 seconds when activated. It is impossible to approach the house from any angle without activating at least one.

We use Simplisafe and we like them.

Put door jambers props on all exterior doors except door from garage.

Install a smart thermostat and turn the temp up in the summer and down in the winter. This should also tell you if you have an HVAC failure.

If it is possible, empty out any safes and leave the door open. Put the contents in a safety deposit box.

Consider putting firearms in a climate controlled storage unit or ask a local gun dealer to store them for a fee.

Put mouse poison cubes, ant poison motels, roach poison motels, everywhere (unless you have a dog) then be careful where you put them.

Last thing on the way out the door, set off some bug bombs in just about every room.

Tell a trusty neighbor, if you have one, of your plans.

 

[pb4uski]

I've drained the water from my mother's summer home for 20+ years and for our seasonal camp for many years before we rebuilt in 2012.

For my Mom's summer home, while there are 6 or so drain plugs and I do remove those, what I do is to connect a shop vac on exhaust to an outside spigot and blow out the water in all of the domestic supply piping. Same procedure for the garage and then blow out the traps and put RV antifreeze and then vacuum out water from the toilets and toilet tanks and put RV antifreeze in the toilet bowls. Importantly, leave all valves open so if any residual water freezes then it has room to expand. Using these procedures I haven't ever had a pipe break and freeze.

Before we rebuilt, I had our seasonal camp plumbed with pex and had a drain on the manifold in the basement. I could turn off the water supply, turn on the drain on the manifold and then open all valves and the supply system drained into a drywall bucket that I then discarded the water. Easy peasy.

Since we rebuilt, we keep the building heated to 55F all winter and I monitor the inside temperature via the internet. If the temp starts dropping I have the plumber stop by to check why we have no heat.

 

[MichaelB]

Turning off water at the meter isn’t always an option. The pool will need to be topped off regularly during the summer due to evaporation. If the house has a programmed irrigation system the water needs to be left on. What we do in that case is turn off the toilet shut off valve.

Emptying the pool may not be an option, or may be a costly one, depending on city ordinances. Turning off the pool motor over the summer will lead to nasty stuff in the water and serious discoloration.

What we do is have nest cams around the inside and outside of the house, including one focused on the pool. We have someone stop by the house every 3-4 weeks and a pool guy once a week.

 

[MichaelB]

For our place in the Chicago area we shut off the water main and drain the pipes. Even with that we have had pipes burst twice. Even a little bit of water can be enough, so now I drain the pipes very carefully.

For the toilets I put a bit of mineral oil in the bowl and then seal it with plastic wrap. That works to reduce evaporation. We’ve tried other options, such as antifreeze, but it stains,

A neighbor takes in the mail, and a local family member stops by on occasion, just to give the world a show of life.

 

[RetMD21]

We go on Road Trips quite regularly.
We pay trusted friends to check on the house almost daily. They bring in packages and take care of the house.

Our friends won't take money but then we hesitate to ask them to help

 

[Aerides]

Emptying the pool may not be an option, or may be a costly one, depending on city ordinances. Turning off the pool motor over the summer will lead to nasty stuff in the water and serious discoloration.

Yeah, and an empty pool where I live means a pool that will pop out of the ground. With a high water table, they design a weep hole while the pool is being built and empty for sometimes months before it's finished, but that's not something for a home owner to reopen and reclose.

Check with your HOA, there may be some trusted services that work for other homes in your neighborhood. My parents neighborhood does, as they have a lot of snowbirds. The guy also does airport shuttles, probably has a nice little business going.

 

[pb4uski]

To be clear, when we winterized our pool we NEVER emptied it... we just drained it to ~1-2' or so below the skimmer, shocked it and covered it... but it still had 6'+ of water in it... so no risk of it popping out of the ground.

 

[brett]

We sold our home, downsized, put what remained in storage for nine months, and traveled.

Prior to leaving we spent a few months moving as much mail as possible to electronic. It worked. Eleven years later about the only mail we get is junk mail.

We still had banking and investment decisions to make during that nine months. Everything went according to Hoyle. We had no issues whatsoever.

 

[Alex The Great]

This is what I do when leave for a long time: shut off water, gas in heater to low, disconnect battery in the car, empty refrigerator, disconnect all power plugs except those connected to camera, forward USPS mail to virtual mail box.
But we do have HOA which is taking care about the front yard.

 

[Zona]

When we travel on multi-month trips we do the following:

Temporary forward to a mail service (Traveling Mailbox) - they will scan or shred mail or will hold it and send it to you as requested.

Security motion cameras - DH is a programmer and has the cameras set up to send snapshots daily, as well as store full videos on our home server.

Homewatch - this is a service from a local realtor (licensed/bonded) for snowbirds. They come by at whatever predetermined frequency at about $50/visit and flush/brush toilets, run faucets, verify windows/doors/perimeter check, start/drive car (if needed), run dishwasher. They send a report each time. We don't have a pool but I'm sure they can help/check on that as well. I'm a weirdo about the toilets -- I definitely do not want the hardwater "ring". So I make sure there are clean/new toilet brushes placed next to each one for the homewatch person to use to brush when they come. So far that is working pretty well. (Curious if our guy is the same one Ronstar mentions above who does 57 snowbird homes in AZ).

Door sensors - if he is "away/not at home", programmer DH gets notified whenever garage door or any entry door is opened.

Water detection devices (Yolink) - these are near every toilet, sink, and other place water could leak in the house. They send an alert if they get even the tiniest bit wet. We leave these in place even when we're home. They have worked very well in the past -- when our dishwasher hose sprang a leak we were notified immediately (luckily we were just in the other room watching TV).

Water meter monitor - this shows water usage in real time. We can tell when the homewatch comes because water usage spikes in the middle of the day while they flush toilets and run faucets.

Lighting - our exterior lights and interior lights are on timers. This way the home is not dark night after night.

Fridge - we have done different things. Sometimes we have emptied/unplugged, other times we've done an "eat down" and just left it on with things that are okay to stay refrigerated/unused for a month or two such as mustard and other long-lasting condiments. (Funny that we are not the only ones using that "eat down" expression!) Depends how long we're gone. Always turn off ice maker and empty it in case of power outage.

Landscaping is taken care of by the HOA. We have a few non-HOA flower pots that are watered with a timer, which is why we leave the house water on (we got the water meter monitor in case this springs a leak so we can call the homewatch and have them come deal with it).

 

[Morgan22]

To be clear, when we winterized our pool we NEVER emptied it... we just drained it to ~1-2' or so below the skimmer, shocked it and covered it... but it still had 6'+ of water in it... so no risk of it popping out of the ground.

We did the same when we had a pool. I thought everyone did this in the winter. (Unless someone lived in FL since it may be warm enough to swim in the winter.)

 

[Morgan22]

We actually just winterized our new to us home last month to travel to warmer weather for the winter.

-We are having mail forwarded for 6 months to DS address. (Before I did that though I made sure to make everything paperless. So I'm hoping nothing gets forwarded.) Oh, and we took down the mailbox since we kept getting mail that didn't belong to us. This was recommended to me by a former postal worker.
-We also had the town come by on the day we were leaving and turn the water off at the street. Cost $40. We then drained and blew out all the water lines. Put in antifreeze where needed.
-Also emptied fridge and freezer and propped open.
-And turned off gas.

We only left on electricity for our outdoor cameras.

 

[rayvt]

The post office will only officially hold mail for 30 days and recommends temporary forwarding if you need longer than that.

Our postmaster told us to rent a PO box and do a temporary forward to that PO box. I asked how big of a box, because we will get a TON of mail while gone. He said, rent the smallest box, when it gets full we'll just put a bin on the floor in front of it and your mail will go into the bin. Said to do a 6 or 12 month prepaid rental and when you get back and cancel the box you'll get a prorated refund.

A lot of people in our area are regularly gone for more than 30 days.

 

[HGTVFanatic]

Talk with your pool vendor. For our pool up north that we closed every winter we partially drained it and then shocked it and covered it and left it for the winter not runnng at all. I'm not sure if you could do the same but I don't see why not. Then we woud reopen it in the spring.

Definitely turn off the water. If someone needs water to refill the pool they can turn it on and then turn it off but if a leak occurs when they are gone it can cause a lot of damage.

For mail, when we snowbird north for the summer we do a temporary address change with the USPS good for 6 months. Also, try to get as much as possible paperless and sign up for informed delivery where they send you and email with scans of the mail en route to you.

When we are away from our Florida condo for the summer we put out DampRid in a few places and are amazed at the amount of water in the containers when we return even though we have the AC and humidistat running all summer.

We also have cameras and a wifi thermostat.
L

Our Post Office will only hold mail for 30 days.

 

[Retired Expat]

Great advice and suggestions and I appreciate it. Speaking of water leaks, has anyone tried using one of those leak detection devices? And if so, did you buy one for all the toilets and all the sinks?

As part of our Ring Alarm we have a couple leak detectors which work pretty well but you need standing water for them to work a steady drip soaking into the floor will not trigger it

Other suggestion is a smart thermostat so you can run the heat or AC if the humidity gets too high!

We actually made our house pretty smart and since we are away as much as we are there we put it up on AirBnB and Home Exchange. An occupied house that is paying for itself is much better than one sitting in empty, getting mouse or insect infested etc!

 

[lawman]

I don't think my ice maker can be turned off...Anything bad happen if I turn off the water without turning off the refrigerator ice maker?