Would you turn off gas if you're travelling for a month? I have a water tank storage. I will also be turning off the water mains and electricity at the switchboard.
What Do You Do for The House before Travelling?
LKongzi on 10/11/2024 - 11:23
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Be honest, this is how you spend your Saturday nights, isn't it? Jimothy's party for one.
Other than being alone in my home gym, yeah, its pretty close. Replace the michael jordan cutout with Veronica Vaughn cutout (from billy Madison) though
Or, you could just invest in some high tech security cameras with spotlights.
- Turn off gas
- Turn off water
- shutdown non essential appliances
- set lights to mimic presence/timers for being being away
- fridge clean up
- food cleaned up, opened packages sealed or thrown out if not used up
- mail redirect or ask neighbours
- tell neighbours you'll be away(and give keys if you trust them)
Do you just turn off the main gas valve outside and when you come back, is it as easy as turning it back on? Any need to light anything up?
IIRC, yes - shutdown outside. Needed to relight gas hot water - easy enough but really depends. There was a forum post asking how to do it.
Look up Legionnaires Disease to see whether you need to do a full flush on return.The manual for your HWS will include re-lighting instructions.
Here's some advice I found online: If you need to turn off the hot water system while you’re away on holidays, make sure the system heats up to 60C and wait 1/2 hour before the water is used to ensure all legionella bacteria have been killed.
@sumyungguy: we do this - turn it off just before the last shower before we leave, and enjoy a longer shower until the hot water runs out
when we return, I turn it back on and we wait at least 45 minutes for the 80L electric peak storage tank to heat up before having the first shower
there is a theory that cooling the tank could allow some metal shrinkage of valves and connections to start a leak, but I've not had a problem so far.
I usually just empty the water tank before leaving and fill it up with fresh water after return.
@Kongzi: Turn off water inlet and then open both the PRV on top and water outlet at the bottom. And be careful of potentially hot water.
If it’s tank based hot water there’s usually a pilot light and instructions to relight it when you open the panel. Or you could just turn it down to lowest but make sure you turn it back to proper temp when you get back.
Safest to wait a few hours like suggested, but generally the “storage water” in the tank is separate from the fresh water that comes in and is heated through a coil of some sort.
Never turn off at the mains whether it be gas or water if you have people coming to inspect. Because they can turn a tap on and not close it as no water would be coming, then if they need to turn on the mains it would flow without knowing.
I leave a contact phone number with someone.
Get the mail redirected or held.
Put a no Junk Mail/Catalogues sign on the Letterbox.
Check your Insurance is paid,My LPO manager says they no longer sell no junk mail signs because AP is a junk mail contractor. So best to ask your neighbours to clear out your box on they days they receive unaddressed mail. The problem I've never totally solved is the fridge circuit tripping. Best I could come up with has been a tell-tale lamp so my neighbours would be able to see if my house lost power; but this relies on them being home while I'm away. Maybe a smart thermometer?
You can get "No Junk Mail" metal or plastic stick on signs at any $2 store, The Reject Shop etc. Real estate agents, politicians and god botherers will ignore it.
In QLD you can report them. I have done it a couple times and they cop a warning.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/forms/advertising-material-repor…
What's the repercussions if they keep doing it?
I'll keep that in mind. Some real estate agent drops spam in my mail box every week. I sure would like to cause an REA pain, even if it's only a little.
I leave 1 star reviews for the estate agency ads. Haven't come up with effective measures for pollies and churchies yet.
why not take a print out & paste it on the postbox.
You can freeze some water in a glass and put a coin on top - if you come back home and the coin is no longer sitting at the top, it's a good sign you lost power at some point
Very smart, Mr Bond
That or the fact your fridge/freezer is oozing!!
Happend to my mum!! Yuck!Another method I've used is a frozen bottle of water. Just turn it upside down before you go. Even a slight thaw is enough to loosen the grip of the ice on the bottle (if it's smooth sided). I like your method though.
I've found a solution of sorts: the TP-Link Kasa smart plugs update their status via their cloud server to an app on your phone.. So if you put them on the same circuit as the fridge they can do double duty as a "random" light switcher (can be scheduled for dark hours) and you can see if they're offline (but you have to look at the app).
Get relatives to stay to house sit/look after pets
Yep!
Also to water the plants!
That is what we do. If you have friends with children who are 20+ years old they might appreciate looking after the place.
We just spent nearly two months in Europe and my nephew moved in. Two cats handed over, two cats handed back. Looks like the same two cats.
Little do you know they lost the cats to party drug OD but found some really good matches.
They were great matches. Managed to get the attitude one of our girls has as well.
We tend to just accept our pet’s quirks until our pet sitter goes “is that normal?”
Honestly one of the worse thing about having pets is trying to get a sitter when you want to go on holidays
Tend to agree with that. You think people would be eager for a nice place and free rent for a few weeks. Our nephew is mid 20s and in a share house. This turned out to be a good fit for moving into our place for a while.
Phantom coward negger again.
Didn't neg
But I will say you are ignorant of how much effort a pet is, what is "obvious"
The unknown is a huge stress factor
I have house/pet sit, the first time was daunting, fortunately it was a cat and not a dog
I would never house sit a dog for more than a weekend
Same with plants… no its not obvious that different plants have different requirements
@Baghern: I was being a tad flippant. Taking on the responsibility of other people’s pets could be daunting.
However, I do have a stalker who is negging most of my comments no matter what they are. I’m not sure why he thinks this will achieve anything but I just keep pointing the coward out.
@try2bhelpful: OzB should get rid of neg voting, IMO it achieves less than nothing. Side note: friend of a friend was trying to find a pet/house sitter (no relatives available) but wasn't expecting to pay anything, as though getting to live in their luxury abode was a reward in itself. Missing the market…
@sumyungguy: If I didn’t have my own pets I think I would consider pet sitting for others. Apparently some retirees are using it as a way to travel around without having to pay for accomodation. However if you don’t have a desirable house or location it might make it a tad more difficult. I was grateful my nephew stepped in. Hopefully he has been seduced by our inner city lifestyle to come back 🙂
Hot water seems to be what uses the most energy so I turn that off. I keep the fridge on.
If your hot water is a heat pump, don't turn it off - at least that is what our manual says.
Does it say why?
Heat pump supplier gets a back hander from the electric company for giving that advice
It's to do with the cold climate where we live - there is apparently an anti freezing mechanism…Page 9 of the following explains about that but it is not clear from this page why there is an issue with turning off if you are in warm climate.
https://pure-electric.com.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/San….Probably it is the risk of legionnaires disease
https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/all/prevention/legi…
Anyone done the maths on how much money you'd save if you turned off the hot water for a month?
I can't find the original source, but this article quotes Sustainable Living Tasmania saying a poorly insulated system located outdoors can lose up to 3 kilowatt-hours per day
Not much but given there's no downside then why not? For me with a small 80l unit it'd be around $20
Downside is not quite zero, just need to be wary of the bacterial broth you've slow-cooked while you're away. For those in denial there was an outbreak this year in Melbourne; 114 confirmed cases mostly in adults aged over 40 years; most cases required hospitalisation with a number of admissions to intensive care; 2 fatalities
@sumyungguy: Unless you get home and immediately start using that water it shouldn't be an issue. You turn it back on and let the water heat back to normal before use which will kill legionnaires assuming you don't have a faulty system that doesn't reach temperature.
@sumyungguy: That outbreak is irrelevant to turning off a water heater. Legionella outbreaks of that size are almost exclusively related to cooling tower issues, as that one was. Using that outbreak as an example of what could happen is like saying "don't leave your car parked in your driveway when you're away. A friend left his in a supermarket car park and it was hit by so many bad drivers"
@banana365: It's to illustrate there is an actual (yet low) risk, even in cooler climates. Why then does pretty much every state and territory recommend not turning off hot water systems due the the Legionella risk? Leaving your car parked in you driveway isn't going to kill you. But go ahead, risk you and your house mates getting pneumonia. Most likely all the younger people will survive.
@sumyungguy: But you're illustrating one risk with another, unrelated one that uses totally different mechanisms. Your "the risk is low, but still there" point may be valid, but your example is way off and ruins your main point.
I'm guessing turning off our 80L elec peak storage unit saves about $2 per day - not proven, but that's my guesstimate.
@Hangryuman: Nowhere near that, my entire daily use is only about $2.70. Hot water system does account for a lot of that but probably only around the $0.70c/day mark.
lock the door
Behind you.
In front of you then climb out of the window
I wouldn't turn power off, as others have said, better off setting things up so it appears someone is at home. Turn the hot water off so save power, if you empty the fridge you can turn that off as well but leave the door open. Ask a neighbour or friend to clear the junk mail and put the bins out (even if empty it adds to the impression that someone is there).
yep - we give a neighbour in our units our key to collect the mail and water the potplants.
What Do You Do for The House before Travelling?
Generally take it out to dinner the night before and when leaving…..
I'll see you soon and I'll send a postcard if I remember
Don't turn off electricity.
Get some smart LED globes, like Phillips Hue and run them on a timer so they turn on at night which gives the appearance that someone is home.
Yeh leaving pets at home for a month with no source of food spoils that relaxed feeling when you get back. Trust me.
I’d say feed them a big fat meal before you go
Good for pet pythons
I will normally hire a plumber to weld shut both my water and gas pipes. The associated excavation work/re-concreting can be expensive, but well worth it for a hassle free long weekend away.
Turn off your washing machine taps. If a pipe break's or comes loose, you won't have water everywhere
check any flexi hoses - typically under vanity taps and maybe kitchen taps - at least six monthly for any roughness feel indicating a break or pressure bulge, to avoid flooding your home while you're not there
I turn off water at main tap.
My neighbour has about 5 cars parked all over his verge and driveway, I asked them to please use my driveway to park their cars.
Set up schedules for my wifi light bulbs.
Turn off the garage door openers.
Set a radio or TV on timer for the evenings.
Set lights on timer, water garden, if there’s friends that want to stay at ours whilst we’re away clean house before they come. We live in a tourist destination so friends are often happy to stay and look after ours in our absence.It’s not a bad idea to have someone stay to look after things.
Set the light timers BEFORE you go away and leave them running. That way it is harder to differentiate between when you are there and when not.
No.
What the hell is the point of any of that?
In case there's a leak and you don't want to come home to a flooded or burnt out house?
Do you want to come home to a flooded or burnt out house after an 8 hour shift at work?
Freezer still needs electricity, plants still need to be watered. Whether I'm home is pretty irrelevant to operations really.
Water shut off
Gas shut off
Heater/cooler timers disabled
Power at wall for non essential things off
Neighbours park in driveway and collect mail/parcels
Light timers
Radio timers
Camera system check
Alarm onHow do you turn off gas? And do you need to relight any pilot fire when you turn it back on?
We have a lever at the front of the house to cut it off just like with water.
Out heater doesn't use a pilot light. I don't think any modern ones would.
Good list… I'd add:
- feed the dog before you go
We let him loose for the month
Leave a few lights on, lock doors as I leave.
Register your absence from residence with the Police
This is in Victoria, find your own state services.
Interesting. Didn't know this existed. Thanks.
I wonder who can access all that data?
Don't think this exists in NSW. Tried searching and couldn't find much.
We let our council ranger know. They run security patrols all over the city and they increase the frequency for places they know are empty.
Buy a few Omamoris for safety and hang them around the house
Not much. Might turn off some power points if I'm feeling superstitious, and probably drop a note to the neighbours (who we know and trust) saying that we won't be home. We have some smart bulbs that turn on at night and off in the early morning, and we simply let this go as per normal to give the suggestion that someone is home.
Might turn off some power points if I'm feeling superstitious
Elaborate please
Less electrical appliances / powerboards switched on == less chance of an electrical fire being caused by anything plugged in, and fewer things damaged by a possible power surge.
The superstitious part is that I always imagine these things happening in the week that I'm gone, whereas it's far more likely to occur in the 51 weeks that I'm at home.
Not sure turning of power is a good idea and this would disable firealarm etc!
Do you mean smoke alarm? What kind of building are you envisaging OP lives in? My smoke alarms are battery powered and are useless if there is no one in the house….
Our smoke alarms are dual powered, battery only serves as backup
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Why turn off power at switchboard? Best to make it look like someone still at home. The illusion is quite simple to pull off:
All you need is:
*semi transparent blinds, and strong backlighting
*timer
*some mannequins
*life size cut out of michael jordan
*some string
*record player
*train set
here is an example of it in operation