Practical questions about long trips

[audreyh1]

Our builder told us to turn the water off at the main valve when leaving for a long time. Those pesky little hoses at the back of the toilet tank have a way of letting go when you least expect it. At least shut those values off. Dishwasher connections can go and are hard to notice until its too late. I've know of two folks who have had flooded homes as result of water lines letting go when they were gone.

We always shut off both the house main water and the gas when we leave - even if only for a week. You never know. The gas is only for the stove and water heater, so it's not needed when we are gone. The garden water system is separate from the house.a

 

[mh]

For any car or boat battery you can buy a device called a "battery tender". It is a monitor/ trickle charger that keeps the battery fully charged while your away.

The other option is to buy "smart charger" and charge your battery back up when you return.

My brother uses a trickle charger when he is away from home in the summer - it works well for him


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[meierlde]

For any car or boat battery you can buy a device called a "battery tender". It is a monitor/ trickle charger that keeps the battery fully charged while your away.

The other option is to buy "smart charger" and charge your battery back up when you return.

I do that with the riding lawnmower which between winter and droughts can sit for months between uses. Charge the batter at the low amp setting for an hour and then try to start it. (I do use a gasoline stabilizer also)

 

[bearkeley]

+1 on the house sitter -- we have traveled to several places as house sitters and have done an excellent job with the mail, plants, pets and maintenance of the house, etc. in fact, enjoying Southern California right now as a house sitter.

We also have rental properties we manage and a house on 12 acres and decided against a house sitter when we Travelled for 5 months, returning last April from Australia and Asia. We plan to do the same again in November. Here's an outline of what we did:

Mail - temporarily forwarded to a friend in another state. She would alert me if anything out of the ordinary came. She was also able to open specific mail that I forgot was coming....like all tax documents that I needed to file for an extension on 4/15! We did however, sign up to stop junk mail (https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email) and do our best to have all bills be sent electronically.

Food - emptied out fridge and freezer. Packed all non-canned or bottled pantry items in airtight containers. Donated perishable items

Winterized the house - but kept the heat on at 50 degrees as a safety precaution. Turned off fridge. Put a heater in our well pump.

Put cars in garage or shed with fuel tank full. Didn't do anything with the batteries...still functioning when we returned.

Suspended service for Internet service, Xm radio, gym membership, phone, etc

Winterized boat. Secured all outdoor furniture in preparation for a storm, etc

Travel / health insurance....GeoBlue has a plan that is very reasonable despite the long term trip

Doctors appointments before the trip



Notified neighbors (trusted) of our plans ...they kept an eye out for us




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[Sunset]

Our builder told us to turn the water off at the main valve when leaving for a long time. Those pesky little hoses at the back of the toilet tank have a way of letting go when you least expect it. At least shut those values off. Dishwasher connections can go and are hard to notice until its too late. I've know of two folks who have had flooded homes as result of water lines letting go when they were gone.

We are one of those folks

We went away and it was only a short 3 week trip, a relative was watching the house and went in 2x per week.
Still, the toilet water connection gave way all on it's own, the actual wall shut off part broke and spewed out lots of water for approx 2 days.
Fortunately we had a drain in the basement so when the water made it's way to the basement it went out.
Otherwise we would have had a basement swimming pool

Now, I turn off the house water (inside I'll admit) every trip.

 

[gretah]

Any thoughts on installing a whole-house surge protector?

I've been reading about how we are due for a solar flare.

I don't use a freezer but my neighbours installed some sort of alert to let them know if the power was out beyond the battery backup on the freezer during the winter. That way, they don't eat the food stored in the freezer and get ill.

 

[Sunset]

Any thoughts on installing a whole-house surge protector?

I've been reading about how we are due for a solar flare.

I don't use a freezer but my neighbours installed some sort of alert to let them know if the power was out beyond the battery backup on the freezer during the winter. That way, they don't eat the food stored in the freezer and get ill.

Never thought about the whole house surge protector, I just unplug some things when leaving (computers, TV, etc).

I have a homesitter device:
HomeSitter-Multi-Functional Home Monitoring Device with Call-Out at Menards®

It phones me (and 2 others) if I have a power failure longer than 5 minutes, water on the floor (I have it in the basement). Freezing temperature or fire.

It really does work and will phone to tell you what the alarm is for and repeatedly phone you until you turn off the notification by your phone.

A trick for the freezer is freeze a long thing thing, like a water bottle, remove the bottle part and put that piece of ice in the freezer on top of everything. When you come back, if it is gone, the freezer had thawed, if it's still there, then the freezer is ok.

 

[Alan]

Never thought about the whole house surge protector, I just unplug some things when leaving (computers, TV, etc).

I have a homesitter device:
HomeSitter-Multi-Functional Home Monitoring Device with Call-Out at Menards®

It phones me (and 2 others) if I have a power failure longer than 5 minutes, water on the floor (I have it in the basement). Freezing temperature or fire.

It really does work and will phone to tell you what the alarm is for and repeatedly phone you until you turn off the notification by your phone.

A trick for the freezer is freeze a long thing thing, like a water bottle, remove the bottle part and put that piece of ice in the freezer on top of everything. When you come back, if it is gone, the freezer had thawed, if it's still there, then the freezer is ok.

I unplug just about everything including the fridge/freezer since we are away for 6 months or more.

I like the idea of filling a plastic bottle half full of water, freezing it then leaving it on its side. Obvious that to see if freezer has thawed and then re-frozen.

I have a Nest thermostat plus camera so I can see if the A/C fails, plus I get an alert from the camera when it has lost power for more than 30 minutes.

 

[REWahoo]

A trick for the freezer is freeze a long thing thing, like a water bottle, remove the bottle part and put that piece of ice in the freezer on top of everything. When you come back, if it is gone, the freezer had thawed, if it's still there, then the freezer is ok.

I like the idea of filling a plastic bottle half full of water, freezing it then leaving it on its side. Obvious that to see if freezer has thawed and then re-frozen.

I leave a few ice cubes in a Zip Lock bag as a thaw indicator.

 

[Bamaman]

On the car(s): I don't know if you can find 100% gasoline in California, but use it if you can. And put a gas stabilizer like Stabil in the gas tanks.

You could put a Battery Buddy charger on the battery to maintain a charge. Otherwise, don't worry about the battery as it'll probably start after 3 months. You could pull the negative post to keep any drain by electronic modules.

 

[mpeirce]

Any thoughts on installing a whole-house surge protector?

It's not a bad idea.

When we had our current house built, we had this added in. Lots of electrical storms and some power outages later, we've had no damaged appliances.

 

[Walt34]

Any thoughts on installing a whole-house surge protector?

We have one that is rented from the power company for ~$4/month. This comes with a limited guarantee that if a surge damages anything, they will pay for it. The "limited" means they do not cover electronics like computers or TVs. When we did have a surge (nearby lightning strike) the surge fried all the smoke detectors, a ceiling fan switch, the ignitor in the gas oven, the motherboard for the furnace & A/C and probably a couple of other things I've since forgotten about.

The check they paid us for damaged appliances more than covered what the expense of the surge protector has been. Oh, and they replaced the surge protector at no additional cost. So for us so far it has been worth it.

 

[braumeister]

Also, be aware that despite the "whole house" tag, it only refers to a surge coming in through your electrical line.

Years ago, a friend had his ham antenna struck by lightning while he was using his rig. It not only melted his radios, but blasted him back through the wall of the room (just wallboard, but still).

He fully recovered, but it took quite a while. No effect on the rest of his house, so the surge protector wouldn't have helped.

Ever since that day, he has physically disconnected his radios from the antenna lines except when actually using them, and never turns them on without checking the weather.