Preparing for a three month get away what do you do with things like electric

When you head out for several months. And don't have anyone staying at your house how do you prepare the house for your extended time away.  This will be our first time to leave for the winter and roam around in the south. Yep after last winter were afraid of the cold weather.  Would love to hear your prep plans  and ideas Thanks Don in KY

When we leave our Upstate NY cottage for extended periods, we empty the perishables from the fridge, turn off the water heaters, turn off the water pump and dump the line pressure, enable the random light timers for security, and in colder weather, turn the heat down to 55 degrees F. Oh, and lock the doors and windows of course. One of our kids usually stops in every few days to check on things. In the winter, our drive gets plowed the same as if we were there.

Make sure you leave the fridge doors open. I have a list of peoples cars and registrations who could be at my house at most anytime and give a copy to all my neighbors and also the police dept. Let the PD know when you'll be leaving and approximate return date. I have all my mail forwarded to where I'll be in FL. I have someone plow my driveway and shovel in front of the garage door to make it look lived in. I leave the heat on but turn it down to 50 degrees. I have a light on a timer. On at 5:00 and off around 10:00. I have my internet service turned off. I keep my telephone on. I'm able to retrieve any messages if my answering machine has any. I turn off all the water to my house except the water for my furnace. I had to do a little re-piping. 

If not already done, put all your utility bills on automatic payment.  That lessens the amount of mail that needs to be forwarded.

ArdraF

And DO NOT announce to all the people you know that you are going away for 3 months!!

All our bills are on autopay so we don't have to worry about bills catching up.

The city comes out and shuts off our water at the curb. That way, we don't pay any water or trash for the time we're gone. Your utility bills may be different.

Neighbors check in once and awhile.

We pay a local young family man to mow. He has our phone number in case he notices anything odd.

Lawn watering on a timer with neighbors and lawn mower checking on it.

Double check all the doors and windows. One year, we were gone for 6 weeks and when we got back home, the back door was wide open. We forgot to close it.

Call you local PD and let them know that you'll be gone. Most will have an LE cruise by and take a look.

Have your mail held.

AND HAVE FUN ON YOUR TRIP.

Wendy

ArdraF said:

If not already done, put all your utility bills on automatic payment.  That lessens the amount of mail that needs to be forwarded.

ArdraF

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those bills are all paid online these days and are paperless .In fact I no longer  receive any mail.I do 100% of bill receiving and payments online

I turn off the water at the inside tap  but have water still  on so my guy that checks on the house can turn  water on and water the plants and flush the tolits  as they get dry and stale.
Insurance where I live requires a home inspection every so often.My guy writes down date and time every inspection
I have the driveway blown out when ever it snows for the " we are home look" and for the meter readers and buddy that looks out for me house mate
I have led bulbs in place and leave them all on for the winter costs about  $1.50 for the winter
I set gas heat at 53 degrees
I let my only  neighbour know who and when will be there .(within reason)
I let my fridge and deep freeze run.The amount of power the two burn in 5 months  wont buy u a 12 pack of beer

Some great ideas here  we live in a rural area so snow removal is no issue  great idea with the fridge and I never thought about flushing the toilets  I planned on turning the water off at the main cutoff and just draining at the lowest point. Lights on a timer makes since. We have our barn and pastures rented so someone is here twice a day to check on the place .  Thanks for all your thoughts.  Making a list of things to remember

And make sure your home owner insurance is up to date! That way you can have peace of mind should any disaster occur!

By the way, your insurance may have a clause restricting coverage for a "vacant" house - you might want to familiarize yourself with that fine print. If you need to discuss anything with your agent or a claims adjuster, never volunteer that the house will be or was "vacant" or words to that effect that might raise the vacancy question. Just say you are or were "away on vacation".

In addition to the usual things like turning the water off to the ice maker, washing machine, and all sinks/toilets and putting the water heater on "vacation", we set the heat to 50 degrees. We have baseboard hot water heat and were told that the water to the house should not be turned off. We put bowl cleaner in the toilets and cover the opening with plastic film. We do not flush the toilet after the water is turned off. Doing that caused the seals to dry out and required repairs when we got back.
We got a seasonal insurance policy which was significantly more expensive than a regular policy.

We also installed a GE wireless security system with very easy to install wireless sensors. If you have Internet while you are gone you can get a wireless camera you can access via your page on the security company's web site. The security company we use is  FrontPoint Security

If there is a power outage there is a 24 hour backup battery and an email is sent telling you when it went out and one when it came back on. If it is out for more than a specified time you will get a call.

The system uses the Verizon data network to communicate with the monitoring company. It uses other providers like Sprint if there is no Verizon coverage.

We have door/window sensors, motion detector, freeze detectors, and flood detectors. In exchange for a big discount on the sensors you have a 3 year contract at $50 per month. After the three years I expect the monthly cost will go down but don't know for sure.

We full time but still own a house. I just blow out the pipes (turn the water off myself) the same way as with a MH. I leave one system on heat and set for 55 deg. and the other for air conditioning and set about 85. It hasn't changed fot the last two winters since we just plug in and stay in the motor home for the few days a year we're there.

Ernie

Clay L said:

We have baseboard hot water heat and were told that the water to the house should not be turned off.  We do not flush the toilet after the water is turned off. Doing that caused the seals to dry out and required repairs when we got back.

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Clay, Do you shut the water off or leave it on. I also have forced hot water for heat so I don't shut the water off. What I did do was make a little piping modification which allows me to keep the water on ONLY to the furnace regulating valve. This is needed in case you developed a small leak in the baseboard  the valve would open and replenish the system. You wouldn't want the furnace to run dry. That wouldn't be good. The rest of the house has no pressure at all.

The other thing I do is open all my cabinet doors to allow heat to get to any water pipes inside the cabinets like under the sinks etc.. 

Also any rooms which do not have any pipes, I shut the doors to keep heat out. I also close the flapper door on top of the baseboard so most of the heat goes straight through the baseboard. No sense heating those rooms.

Most any hot water heat systems in house,s are not connected to your city water supply.I have never seen one that was?

What are you talking about?  I have a indirect water heater next to my boiler and it has supply piping coming in from my well. Also there is a 1/2" line coming from my well that goes to a pressure regulating valve and from there it goes directly to a manifold which has all the pumps for the different zones. One of the pumps circulates hot water from the boiler through the indirect water heater heating up my domestic hot water. The other pump is for my baseboard radiators. The pressure regulating valve keeps the system full in case there was ever a minor leak someplace and the pressure should drop because of a leak.

Rene T said:

What are you talking about?  I have a indirect water heater next to my boiler and it has supply piping coming in from my well. Also there is a 1/2" line coming from my well that goes to a pressure regulating valve and from there it goes directly to a manifold which has all the pumps for the different zones. One of the pumps circulates hot water from the boiler through the indirect water heater heating up my domestic hot water. The other pump is for my baseboard radiators. The pressure regulating valve keeps the system full in case there was ever a minor leak someplace and the pressure should drop because of a leak.

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very well could be ?? all I said I have not seen one tied directly to house water system For example my mother has radiant hot water heat.Its a closed system
She has a separate hot water tank system. If her system leaks it has to be manually refilled and air purged.I doubt yours has to have the city water on to work. normally it is a self contained pressurized system
However she can shut off the city water in case her HWT leaks and still run the heating system.

buchanan said:

I doubt yours has to have the city water on to work.

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I must be a liar!!!! Tell me what a pressure regulating valve does. In case you don't know, it maintains pressure in a closed loop system. I also have a solar hot water system which is a closed loop system and it also has a pressure regulating valve plumb to the water supply.

Update: I just made change to a statement I made in the above paragraph. I didn't want to get my hand slapped and I realized it wasn't worth it. I didn't want to lower myself to his level!!!  

Rene T said:

I must be a liar!!!! Tell me what a pressure regulating valve does. In case you don't know, it maintains pressure in a closed loop system. I also have a solar hot water system which is a closed loop system and it also has a pressure regulating valve plumb to the water supply.

Update: I just made change to a statement I made in the above paragraph. I didn't want to get my hand slapped and I realized it wasn't worth it. I didn't want to lower myself to his level!!!

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For gods sake relax man as your making a mountain out of a molehill. No one said you were a liar,Your putting words out there that just aint so.What I said was  your system should function fine without city water pressure.If it needs city water pressure for your home heat to work so be It? What I said was I doubt your system has to have City water to function if it does I really don't care.Like I said 3 times is the ones iam familiar with is the self contained pressurized system.(no city water required)Anyhow We were  just discussing pros and cons of what one should do when leaving house for  winter to go snow birding.

Because we live in an area where the power has gone out for extended periods of time, we also have a plumber come in and blow out all the water lines, drain the hot water heater, treatment system, and well pressure tank, etc.  A small price to pay if the power goes out.

Elliott,
Any idea how much it cost to have all that done?

It cost me just over $200, but he had to lift the pump out of the well and put a shut off in the riser to keep the water from coming into the house.  The woes of a true artesian well.