Winter vacation

[squeezebox]

If you are going on a winter vacation a couple of things you should do. Turn off you water main supply valve. #1
A friend of mine went to visit her sister in Jan. a few years ago. She turned the furnace off. The idiot contractor who built the house ran the water lines through the attic. After enough time the insulation settled exposing the water lines. Well she left, furnace off, pipes exposed.
Well the pipes froze cracked then thawed, water poured into the house for days. She says the house was ruined, apparently the insurance company thought the same. Then she got into a car accident and lost her car. Lost her job. now she's homeless. For real !!

So when you leave in the winter turn off the water main supply valve in your basement or where ever else it might be.
I live in a neighborhood where there's some empty houses, and it's not uncommon for thiefs to break in and steal copper.
Now these people (?) are so stupid they don't turn off the water first.
Protect yourself and property, turn off the water, set the lights on timers, all the rest of the being gone stuff. House sitter, just add turning off the water.
Protect yourself from the Bonobos!!

[Lone Wolf]

shouldn't have turned the heat off

[Rocket Jones]

Why is the contractor the idiot? That's standard practice in some areas, and obviously met the local code.

[Coffee]

Always leave the heat set to 50 degrees. I used to live in a house that I mainly heated by a wood stove but always set the furnace set to 50. Also if using propane, make sure there is enough fuel. And have a trusted neighbor check on the house once in a while.

Living in a high rise condo has some downsides but I can leave for months without worries. Not so with a house.

[Sarcasm the elf]

shouldn't have turned the heat off

Here in New England, purposely shutting off your furnace on the winter is very rare.

Also winterizing a house isn't as simple as turning off a water valve. You need to empty the water out of all of the lines, then pour an appropriate antifreeze in the drains and toilets, probably some other stuff too. Honestly if I were trying to shut off the utilities in my house during the winter I'd probably consult a professional to make sure in didn't miss anything, like you said it can seriously damage the house.

[fiddlehead]

I always shut mine down.
Draining the system took some practice and I eventually bought a valve that screws into a hose faucet, but you can add air as if you were filling your tires. Blows all the water out, through the faucets.
And pour a little anti freeze down all drains, toilet and even a little in the washing machine.
Even after last year's deep freeze, nothing was broken and it took me all of 5 minutes to get it all back up and running again.

Takes me about 30-40 minutes and a gallon of anti-freeze to shut-er-down.

[WingedMonkey]

Not a problem here.

:sun

[Sarcasm the elf]

I always shut mine down.
Draining the system took some practice and I eventually bought a valve that screws into a hose faucet, but you can add air as if you were filling your tires. Blows all the water out, through the faucets.
And pour a little anti freeze down all drains, toilet and even a little in the washing machine.
Even after last year's deep freeze, nothing was broken and it took me all of 5 minutes to get it all back up and running again.

Takes me about 30-40 minutes and a gallon of anti-freeze to shut-er-down.

Fiddlehead, I'm interested to know, do you have a freestanding waterheater, and if so how do you go about winterizing it? Does it just drain along with the rest of the system or do you have to separarely purge it? Do you add any antifreeze to the heater itself?

[Sarcasm the elf]

Not a problem here.

:sun
Sure, take the easy way out. ;)

[MuddyWaters]

Insurance may require a separste plumbing rider.

Coworker of mine had similar happen. Previous owner ran uninsulated water tubing thru attic to an ice maker. With house heat on low, attic still got cold enough to freeze tubing, water leaked in 3 days . 55,000 damage , ten yrs ago. He was covered.

[kayak karl]

install something like this (http://www.floodmaster.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQiAsueiBRCT8YOM4PDElsYBEiQAaiI4IL3y8kr oulK8J51pHMlhHQoGcUYE_IMEU07hgUoK9kgaAi5a8P8HAQ). a water line can break any time of year. they make warning alarms for sump pumps too.

[fiddlehead]

Fiddlehead, I'm interested to know, do you have a freestanding waterheater, and if so how do you go about winterizing it? Does it just drain along with the rest of the system or do you have to separarely purge it? Do you add any antifreeze to the heater itself?

I have an "on demand" propane hot water heater.
That thing saves me a lot of money. Doesn't even have a pilot light. Fires up from a AA battery when I turn on the hot water spigot.
It never made much sense to me to keep 35 (or more) gallons of water hot 24/7 to take a shower once in a while.

If you have a stand alone, hot water heater, you'd have to drain it.
Not sure about anti-freeze but, I could ask my brother (plumber)
He's the one that told me to even put it in the washing machine.

[Snowleopard]

In the 2008 ice storm we lost power for 11 days (in Dec., low temp was well below 0F).
28857

If you shut off heat in a cold climate, you have to be serious about winterizing your plumbing.
After the ice storm, I shut off the main water valve, unscrewed the fuse for the pump, drained all water lines as best I could. This would not have been good enough if I hadn't been able to keep some heat in the house. I used a wood stove upstairs with a kerosene heater in the basement. I used a wireless remote thermometer in the basement and went downstairs to turn on the kerosene heater when it approached 32F there. With typical New England construction and insulation, the outside temp needs to go below 30F for pipes to freeze (nobody puts pipes in an attic). If you're really lucky, a pipe can freeze without breaking, but don't count on it (this probably happens more when the the freezing is brief and doesn't happen on the whole length).

Equally important is turning the water back on. What I did was to turn it on a little bit, gradually, and run up and down the 2 flights of stairs to check if there was a leak. When I saw no sign of a leak, I opened the main valve a little more. If a pipe had frozen, I don't think I would have had huge damage with this turn on strategy

One neighbor had a lot of damage because she had a broken pipe, so when the power came on lots of water went into the house. Another had a sump pump in a finished basement, which flooded on the warmer days without power.

The windchill here was -30F the morning after the power came back on, and nearly that at times while the utility crews were up on poles. I felt sorry for the crews from Florida and grateful to all the crews that helped.

[Havana]

We shut our house up in New Hampshire down each year. I have a plumber do it to make sure everything's done right but the short story is: drain well pressure tank, drain hot water heater, siphon water out of toilet tank, drain all pipes, pump 2 gallons of RV antifreeze into the pipes ensuring all water is out, antifreeze in all the traps. If we don't close it, I set the thermostat to 55 and have an alarm that automatically calls me if the temp inside the house goes below 50 (assuming the phone lines didn't get taken out by a storm)

[Old Grouse]

My parents used to turn off their New Hampshire house and head for Florida every winter. They had built it with that in mind, so had electric heat. When they got too old to travel they installed baseboard hot water. They had someone walk through once a week, and then turn everything back on in March about two weeks before their return. It took that long for everything (furniture, cabinets, etc) to warm up.

[The Solemates]

We are gone a lot, and have learned from past mistakes. We had a pipe freeze before....luckily while my wife was at the house. It still did $6,000 worth of damage though. come to find out there was no insulation between it and the exterior wall. The insulation was between the pipe and the interior wall. dumb contractor.

I installed panels with shut off valves inside the house for spigots that have pipes that run along interior/exterior walls. I shut the valve come Nov, drain it, and dont turn on again til March unless needed. We also keep the heat at 50 or so when we are away for longer period of times. My water heater sits next to my furnace, so I've never had issues with it. Not sure that I would anyways living in TN. It rarely gets below 0. My toilets and water lines are mostly on the interior of my house and not along exterior walls. With the heat at 50 I've never had problems (except the one spigot line that I fixed with the valve)

[adamkrz]

I Shut the washer hoses when we go away during the summer also, had one break years ago and it filled the basement.

[he.who.forgets]

Not a problem here.

:sun
Or here:)
But seriously though, sorry to hear about your friend! Hope things turn around for them.

[squeezebox]

Thanks for your concern for her, she seems to be a bit bi-polar to me, so I doubt she'll ever be "normal". Our society just does not make room for those of us that do not fit it's norms.

[squeezebox]

Water heater:
I considered an on demand water heater, tempermental and very expensive. 4X a normal heater, and the gas company said my gas line might not handle the load.
So I went with a gas powered vent heater. There's a blower on top of the heater that sucks the exhaust to the outside. I put the electric switch at the top of the basement stairs, it powers the vent blower, so I can turn the heater on or off at my pleasure. takes about 10 minutes for water to heat for a shower, then I turn the switch off. Much cheaper than on-demand and I think easier to deal with. Really good for a 1-2 person household.