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How to Protect a Home When Away in Winter?
kidMike writes "I have just accepted a new job in another state, requiring me to relocate. I'm going to keep my house in New England. As I watch the winter storm problems and electrical outages across the country, how do Slashdotters protect their houses (or cabins) when they are away in the winter? Is there a device that will call me if the temp in the house drops below a certain level? How about a broken pipe flooding the house? How can I keep advised of problems happening hundreds of miles away? (There will still be broadband at the house.)"
So, just rent your house out for a few months. Let the tenants phone you if there are any issues.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Friend or relative you can trust. I sincerely hope you are not looking for a technological solution, because I left the autonomous robotic house minders and the holographic repair people in my other pants.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
I would of thought most Slashdotters would prefer to protect their home with either a few Tesla coils or Prism towers. A Mammoth tank left behind can be advisable when your away base-raping however the airfield should normally be able to take care of any surprise threats.
That's one easy step anyway...
Do you have friends?
Option 1: Set up a web cam pointed in your living room, and put a thermometer in view. Then you'll see if there's a broken pipe, and you can read the thermometer.
Option 2: get to know your neighbor.
My friend doubt one of the nokia cellular cameras and it runs off the mains with a rechargable battery. You can text it to send you a picture of your home at any time, it will also send you a picture when the power is disconnected and when there is motion. Cool little thingy.
Find some nice family willing to live there for the winter.
And remember: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I know its not technical and nor does it have a wow factor or allow you to log into a web based control and monitoring page in the "interweb", but how about asking a friend / neighbour to keep an eye on it for you? That way if something goes wrong they may be able to help you sort out any problems without you coming back, plus they are more flexible, able to deal with the weather, any break-ins, any mail that doesn't get misdirected or anything else for that matter.
Obviously the issue here, and it a big one, is Trust.
Drain them. All of them if you can. It's not hard. Insulate the ones you can't.
I don't know your exact circumstances - if you live close enough to a friend or neighbor - have them look out the house periodically - I don't know why people try to do a job with technology that can only be accomplished 1/100 as well for 10x the price.
I found many many such solutions....with the first query string that came to mind after reading your post...
+ flood+alarm&btnG=Google+Search )
t -Three-501572782/prices-htmlo m.asp?productID=1115
( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cabin+winter
Here are two selected more or less at random...
http://www.nextag.com/RELIANCE-CONTROLS-PhoneAler
http://www.norcoalarms.com/ezStore123/DTProductZo
Hire someone in the area to keep an eye on things, e.g., take a look around once a week and e-mail you. Drain the water from the pipes, so they won't break. Why don't you want the temperature to drop below a certain level? -- that's why you drain the pipes.
Find free books.
Do not ONLY shut the water off, drain the lines as well. You can also leave one faucet on a lower level open very slightly (after shutting the water off to allow room for expansion as well.
Sure this is a very non-geek answer and perhaps inappropriate for slashdot but...Have you considered renting it out as a winter seasonal? Don't know where in N.E. you are at, but in the area I am from--and all my family still lives--it is quite common to see people offering up their houses as winter rentals (at a fairly significant discount) to avoid the very sort of winterizing and worry you are asking about. Basically everybody involved wins: the owner gets the house taken care of and lived in during the winter and the renter gets the place at a rate inconceivable of during the summer and spring. just a thought...
I usually don't like advertising a site, but just about everything you are looking to do can be done with stuff found on www.smarthome.com. From automatic water-pipe cut-off devices, to intricated temperature and environmental controls. Just look around. It can and will get expensive, but the water-pipe cut-offs are worth it the first time they engage and stop a problem before it is a problem.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Your allusion
+
my drinking milk
=
nasal milk output
Nice one.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Is there a device that will call me if the temp in the house drops below a certain level? How about a broken pipe flooding the house? How can I keep advised of problems happening hundreds of miles away?
Well, you could tell your neighbours that you're going away and ask them to check in on everything every once in a while.
Granted this isn't a high-tech proposal, but it would probably be effective.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
We use a device from this company to monitor our data centers for power, temperature and water intrusion.
http://www.sensaphone.com/
This should work, but you still need a trusted indevidual locally to handle any problem that came up.
All you need is this:
http://www.sensaphone.com/sensaphone-1104.html
I've used a Sensaphone in the past for a small data center, and it worked great. Never went down, never had problems, never had a false alarm. They've been around for a very long time.
I thought normal people leaving a house for a significant amount of time turned off gas, electricity (except for house alarms if possible) and water? cancel papers and milk etc (build up shows no-ones in)
The only real problem then is if you have general damp worries, some like to leave heating on to protect against that, but then that could be a fire risk.
the only way after that is a VERY trusted friend/relative to check in every now and again (also helps deter burglars) or a house sitter. You can't put web cams on every corner of the house, looking at every pipe, all the rafters etc..
Seriously, http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/ Automate your home. I'll agree more with the above poster though, rent it out.
I make good money. I use to make great money. I bought stuff I didn't need. Stuff I did need. Stuff I wanted. It got stolen several times. No, you can't protect yourself against everything.
Just get insurance. It's just "stuff". Relax.
Throw in a subscription to WoW and I'll look after your house as long as you like
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
I usually set up a series of pits and snares and then stock secret rooms with orcs and kobolds. It doesn't hurt to circulate rumors of a powerful demon living in the cellar in local taverns either.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I am sure a property management/security company would be happy to keep an eye on things while you're away. Otherwise, you could rent it to me, I am looking to move back to New England....
http://digitalpowderhound.blogspot.com/
If you are going to be away a simple list to start with is:
/ ibuttons.cfm#sensor
1. Conserve electricity, unplug everything or just flip your breakers off (if you have nothing remote to access)
2. If you use natural gas, you can shut it off at your house or just cut off the heater/water heater.
3. Turn off your water. Look for your water shutoff valve and just turn it off...
4. Cover your pipes! If it gets cold, even if you've shut off your water, wrap your pipes up near the shut off valve.
If you need something on inside, need to monitor, or a certain temperature... (plants?)
I hope then you would have:
1. Programmable thermostat to set temperature versus time.
2. Maybe a remote IP camera to take a peek inside your house, maybe with a timed light. ZoneMinder is a great piece of software to use with that.
3. There are several temperature sensors you can get, but if you are a HW geek you could check out integrating a kit from Maxim: http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/ibutton/products
-Ho
Just leave me the address....
My parents just left. Their strategy was to turn the water off, and heat the house at 60 degrees to ensure that they save money on heating, while still not risking the pipes bursting. They have a neighbor go over to water plants every few days, and that makes a lot of sense. If you need to leave your house for an extended period, make sure a friend or trustworthy neighbor is checking up on it every once in a while.
I myself didn't go on vacation so I check up as well as the neighbor. The house is probably checked once every two days.
So leaving your house is just fine, remember to turn off all the lights when you leave, check all doors and lock up, and things will be just fine.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Buy an old P-III tower for 50 bucks, set it up with Fedora Core 6, Apache, and a dynamic DNS service. Add a cron job to reboot the server every Sunday, and maybe enable LogWatch to email you daily status updates. Finally, place the tower on the bare concrete in your basement.
With this set up you can check on your house from anywhere at any time. If the server stops responding, your house has been destroyed.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Basic cameras are cheap now. Even wireless cameras are $70ish. Like $25-cheap. TV tuner cards are also dirt cheap. My advice to you is to set up a Linux server with a bunch of tuners. Put cameras all over the house. Install the program "motion." Set it to email your phone when it see something.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Just to reiterate this, make CERTAIN you drain your pipes COMPLETELY if you're going to shut them off...just shutting them off is incredibly stupid advice that my family followed one winter. We came home to a complete disaster. Pipes burst in multiple places, we had no water for days, and it would've cost a fortune if we didn't have connections to a plumber that someone knows personally. Remember: water expands when frozen, so this isn't as much of an issue if you leave your heating on (which will cost a lot of money unnecessarily).
My first thought would be to setup webcams in every room watching doors, windows, sinks... thermometers... et cetera and setup a PC to stream them out somehow.
I guess I have to get on the common sense band wagon. I live in new england and we left the house over-winter. Shut off the utilities, drain the pipes. If you have a well you might need to shut off a valve at the well head.
The best thing I had was a guy I sent $100/month to drive by the house on his way to work. He also kept a spare car in the driveway and moved it around every couple days. Nobody knew the house was empty.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
Dammit, by the time I submitted my post I realized I forgot to finish adding that bit. Also take note of the types of pipe in your home. Hard plastic PVC/CPVC pipes get very brittle with the cold and will tend to split in multiple places, having several faucets left open after draining the pipes can help prevent pipes splitting in areas that may hold water even after draining. Copper pipe, depending on type (type = thickness), has a better resistance to freezing and splitting, but a hard freeze in a copper pipe will split it open just as easy as a hard plastic pipe. Again, drain and leave faucets open. Soft plastic pipes, like Polybutylene, can actually withstand a hard freeze to a point, but if enough of the pipe freezes when full of water they can "blow" off the fittings on the pipe from the expansion. You can get by with draining these pipes and not having to leave any faucets on.
And give them the key.
... irony?)
You fucking idiot. If you had friends this wouldn't be a problem. But because you're a slashdot posting retard it's overly complicated.
ass. (my captcha word is humbled
http://www.controlselectric.com/
The most sure fire way is to burn it.
...I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Well, aside from two dead bodies, the hotel was in good shape. I'd rather have "REDRUM" on a door than a burst pipe, I say.
I have freaks! I did something right...
But plenty of people winterize cabins for the winter. I would contact the state extension office for booklets on the subject.
I know that you have to shut off the water, some people put plywood on the windows. Some people put a minimal amount of heat to avoid sub freezing temps inside the house itself.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Get to know his neighbor? In person?? You must be new here.
How about a broken pipe flooding the house? ... (There will still be broadband at the house.)
Given the potential for there not to still be broadband at the house should the modem be sitting in a few inches of water/have water run through the closet it's in/etc. you may want to consider having whatever data the house outputs get stored elsewhere.
That way, when you check and get no signal, you can get a pretty good idea of what happened right up to the loss of signal rather than find, "hmm, the house is off the net, I'd better buy a plane ticket to find out nothing more than my ISP sucks."
Similarly, you may want to leave a key with a trusted neighbor who can go in and restart any crappy consumer grade gear that's managed to lock itself up.
In short, broadband's a wonderful thing but it's not as "always on" as you'd want for being able to monitor things from a distance.
Try http://www.attrm.com./ It is a remote camera monitoring solution. Works fairly well. You can even attach intruder and temperature sensors. Possibly more
There's a low tech solution to pipes freezing when you're away. It's an inline valve you place just above the main pipe. It has a standard compressor air fitting. All you do is turn off the water and open up the taps in the house and apply pressure from an aircompressor. It'll blow out the pipes and it just takes a couple of minutes. It's the only way to be 100% sure. The fitting is cheap and if you don't have an air compressor you can rent one cheap for a couple of hours.
Turn the main water valve off than run the sinks and flush the toilets to get all the water out. Than pour windhsield washer fluid down because it doesn't freeze. Than have a friend/neighbor check up on it once in a while. Or rent it out.
1-Wire, Linux and DigiTemp.
http://www.digitemp.com/
iButtonLink has 1-Wire devices that will sense flooding, temperature and some other stuff.
It'll cost you about $85 to get started messing around with it.
Friend of mine uses:
X-10 devices
Panasonic IP cameras (steerable)
Airport base stations
Mac G4 (OS X)
The software that actually controls the cameras is a commercial package which puts up an internet server - you log into it, and you can check individual cameras, positioning them at will; check multiple cameras with the images tiled; check archived videos; capture a live stream and play it back at various speeds, etc..
He can then use the internet and his Blackberry to log on and live view any of the cameras around his home.
For real security, he uses a local home security contractor, which responds when various alarms detect certain issues, etc.
My family owns a vacation cabin in the mountains and this is what we do:
I mprovements/large_images/264284zz.jpg
- Dual heating systems. One gas heater keeps the house warm enough (55F) and electric room heaters are set below that. We've had yet the chance to see both fail.
- The water is shut off. If a pipe breaks then at least it doesn't flood.
- To avoid water breaks, cover all outside faucets. We use something similar to this: http://www.improvementscatalog.com/HanoverAssets/
- Some lights are put on timers for protection against burglary (the house looks occupied). You should also ask your neighbors to call if you they see suspicious activity.
Don't forget that when you come back to turn on the water and flush out both the hot and cold water from the system. You don't want to be heating up or drinking water that's been sitting around in water heater or pipes.
If you're really worried about the place, get a security camera. I've used Axis network cameras ( http://www.axis.com/products/video/camera/ ) and they are good cameras.
For temperature try Web Thermometer. I'm sure there are similar devices for measuring water. I remember building a water sensor from a cheapo Radio Shack electronics lab years ago, there's really not much to it. From there it's just a question of monitoring for a signal on your COM port and sending an email or calling your cell on a particular 'event' (see 'man setserial' if you're a Linux user). You can also hook up a web cam and using something like xawtv on Linux via a shell script that can email pics. I'm sure you can do all this on Windows too. Don't forget to write a how-to for the rest of us when you have it all figured out.
I'm sure there are plenty of nerdy tools to monitor temp, humidity, etc., just don't use them in place of human beings. You should still loan a set of keys to someone you trust to check it every few days. Sensors and software don't have intelligence to understand what's happening or anticipate a problem before it happens (such as an ice storm knocking out your power, leading to other failures, etc.)
The truly enlightened person would not care about material possessions. As such, it is better to protect yourself than you possessions.
Put some antifreeze in the toilet tank and the toilet bowl. Also put some antifreeze in each of the drains. The drains always hold a bit of water to block sewer gas from getting into the house. That's why you don't want to completely empty the toilet.
I've also had good success with wrapping the pipes in the crawl space with an electric heating 'tape'. It's basically a long electric heating element that can be attached along the length of a pipe. If you live in cottage country, the hardware store will carry the stuff.
Be aware that some/many/all insurance companies don't like to insure uninhabited buildings. Putting a tenant in the house would solve a bunch of problems. In any event, you probably want to arrange with someone to check on the house occasionally.
simple.
Call your local Security company (that sells DSC products) Get a Power 832 or simular, add flood detector, fire, (power is always monitored), temp sensor, etc. And so you can call in.. or it can call you.. the Voice unit.
Had this setup in my place. Works perfectly. And if your really worried.. call it. put your mind at ease.
www.dsc.com
enjoy..
too lazy to log in.
Not sure if this would help http://www.liquidbreaker.com/ but it has an internet connection, allows you to monitor the water from afar, as well as monitor temperature of water pipes
I took a few weeks off work, and returned to find my favorite geek website had replaced its standard content with content completely unrelated to the topics which used to make it great. Even more disturbing was the fact that no one else seemed to notice.
What should *I* do?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I highly recommend it for a multi-camera, web-based solution. Free download, runs on linux, integrates with x10, what more could you need?
okay so i've never lived in a cold climate where you had to worry about water freezing in the pipes but from what i understand from my friends who do, just shutting your water off when the temperature may drop below zero is the last thing you want to do 'cuz the water will expand when it freezes and make the pipes burst. . .
That's what my family does with our cabins on cape cod. Otherwise, (When we forget to), a pipe under the cabin will generally explode.
Seriously, I'm in New England and I'm friends with a LOT of very hip, trustworthy, boy-scout-type people. Depending on where exactly you are, this could be as easy as draining your pipes and handing a set of keys to someone you can trust.
Definitely drain the pipes, though.
And message me if you need a human for anything... I might be able to help.
AIM: MarcQuadra
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Let s slight drip drip of water run from all the faucets in the house. Running water is less likely to freeze.
Instrumentation doesn't help if there is an ice storm and everything is out for several days. Plus something could go wrong with the high tech solution.
What you want is to make sure the pipes can't freeze because there is no water in them. Blow out the pipes with an air compressor, drain the water heater and toilets, put antifreeze in everything that might hold water (sink traps etc.)
I would use a product called Weather Goose a water sensor and Dartware's Intermapper.
http://www.itwatchdogs.com/ - They have other environment monitors as well.
http://www.intermapper.com/ - As if this isn't already apparent, though it isn't necessary if you want to do some programming.
You can have them post up a snapshot every 5 minutes, and browse the current state of your house at any time. I'd just leave DSL running and put a cheap machine with Apache connected to the webcams, and then have them save a snapshot every 5 minutes to a folder you can browse remotely from the internet. You could be a lot more sophisticated if you really wanted to with products on the market (temperature monitoring, scheduled heating of key areas of the house). It depends on the objectives. I'm sure you could prepare the systems of the house for a total shutdown in cold temperature without technology. Close the plumbing off from public utility and drain the pipes, disconnect the eletric systems at the main breakers, that sort of thing. It depends on what you want. Personally, I'd consider renting it out while you are gone. Good source of income, and you get free status monitoring by the tenant, and since the house is heated, you avoid the cold weather issues associated with a long vacancy.
All the high tech, internet, wireless, broadband hooptie is useless if the neighborhood power goes out for a couple of days.
"Hey...here's $200. Keep an eye on the place for a couple of months and water the plants." Turn the water off at the street and turn the heat down.
Shutting off the water is just the first step. Open the lowest tap and let the system drain. Fill the drain traps and toilets with antifreeze solution so they don't freeze up and crack. I don't know how you heat your place but gas furnaces and water heaters have a "vacation" setting so check your heat sources. A couple of light timers would be handy to make the place look lived in. You should also check with your insurance company as many policies state that the dwelling must be occupied to be insured, or at least checked by a responsible person daily. Don't forget to let your mailman, paperboy and local cop know that you are going to be gone for a while. Good luck with your endeavors.
I have a house up north that is vacant right now, but I'm not taking a "technology" approach to a non-technological problem. Turn off the heating, for one. No point in keeping an unattended heating system activated, for two reasons. Fire hazards and unnecessary consumption of fuels. Second, purge your pipes. Depending on the structure of the plumbing this could be either easy or hard, but the idea is to close the main valve, and empty all the pipes in the house. All of them. One over looked area that causes problems is the toilet. There's water in the tank. Flush it out after you've closed the main water valve. However, that will still leave some water in the bowl. While that is not THAT big of a deal, you can easily overcome the problem by pouring antifreeze (any old antifreeze purchased at Napa Auto etc. will work) in the bowl. (Don't dilute it, its not an engine.) Turn off the main power circuits as well.
And the final step is... just let your friendly neighbors and near by relatives that you won't be around for a while, and ask them to call you if anything happens. There are quite a few things that can happen while you're away, including burglary, fires, and other things that a techno auto-call system will be utterly useless for.
Don't think tech.
No tech solution will work at any reasonable price if there is a long power outage. Empty the freezer, drain the plumbing and lock her up. Low temeratures will not damage anything and once you remove the perishables you are good to go.
1. doorknob
2. string
3. shotgun
4. profit! (optional)
Turn off the water and gas.Leave the electricity on. Install a monitored alarm system. Have all your mail forwarded so it does not accumulate. Contract a landscaping service to keep the snow at bay and the exterior looking liveable. When you return, turn on the water and gas.
In Southern NH by chance? I'll house sit for ya'.
I don't smoke or drink, no pets, I keep things neat and clean up after myself, and, I'm not popular enough to throw big parties...
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
If you're worried about bursting pipes (which you should be - it's an incredible expense if it goes and runs for days or weeks). The best solution is to keep it heated and you can do that easily without electricity, assuming you have either natural gas or propane.
Buy a blue-flame wall-mount heater and have it professionally installed by a plumber. It is a 100% efficient heater that runs off of propane or natural gas and uses a manually-sparked pilot light. You can adjust the manual thermostat mostly which is pretty unsophisticated - e.g. low to high - and it'll cycle on and off depending upon need.
We've done that ever since a bad ice storm took our power out for a week and now that we live on a farm, it's even more important. Plus, the 100% efficient heating is a nice supplement to less efficient furnaces. Put them on the lowest level of a home - e.g. the basement - as heat rises. It makes a nice supplement for heating basements too incidentally.
The small versions are well under $100 and don't take a lot of time to install if you're going into an unfinished basement. For not much more, the big units really cut your electric heating costs and pay for themselves usually in 1-2 years since your regular forced air furnace has to run a lot less (and at best, they're less efficient).
"how do Slashdotters protect their houses (or cabins) when they are away in the winter?"
Well, I'd guess the average Slashdotter just lets their parents worry about that sort of thing...
#DeleteChrome
I suggest leaving your youngest child at home to take care of the place. Leave adequate supplies, like paint buckets, firecrackers, cardboard cutouts of famous people, some 1950s gangster films (that you wouldn't let him watch otherwise), a tarantula, and a blowtorch. That should take care of everything.
Many insurance policies won't cover unoccupied houses. Check with your agent and secure additional coverage if necessary. And hire somebody to look after your house. For money. With well defined responsibilities, like checking the house every k days and keeping a record.
We have a cabin in the mountains of Montana and have been "closing" it for the seasons for a few years now.
As other posters have said, turn your water OFF. Also, turn off your hot water heater before turning off your water (at least an electric can burn out the element). We turn off all the circuits that aren't absolutely needed. We also have a few of the electric rodent devices that we leave on to help keep out mice, etc. You may also want to put out some poison or traps.
Either drain your water or have a valve for an air compressor attached (the pipes for the cabin are angled so they drain easier). All we do is open all the sinks, shower, etc. and then open the drain valves.
Flush the toilets a few times and then put RV anti-freeze (the pink stuff) in the tank. Flush again so it it gets into the bowl, then repeat so it goes down the plumbing somewhat too (we also add a little more to the tank again). More RV anti-freeze down each of the sink drains to keep them from freezing. We use about 1.5 gallons for two sinks, a shower and the toilet.
We also cancel any services such as our PO Box (no mail delivery up there), satellite, etc. (no phones available either).
Finally, and a major point, have someone check on the place every so often. If you've closed it up carefully there won't be too much to watch for but things can and do happen. We had snow slide off the roof and take the chimney with it. A neighbor noticed on a walk and called the neighbor who checks on the place for us. They patched the whole until we could have it repaired. Good neighbors are the best insurance you can find.
http://w3.misterhouse.net:81/
http://www.smarthome.com/
I usually set up one of my new security devices to keep unwanted people off my property. if you want a link here is the basic gist of the device: http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/samsung_develo ps_machine_gun_sentry_robot_costs_200k.php [newlaunches.com]
it was fairly cheap too
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. - Issac Asimov
Call a plumber experienced with winterizing vacation homes. Install a monitored alarm and have a friend setup as a contact. Try a construction/home maintenance forum.
they're not amazingly cheap, but they use an ordinary phone line, keep calling til acknowledged, are battery backed... they're only meant to monitor power and temperature, but i'm sure you could interface something else if needed.
Set up a couple web cams rigged to motion sensors. Should be able to find what you need @ Radio shack. 2 or 3 set up in critical locations would do the trick. Also reccomend a moisture sensor of some type in the basement (if u have one).
"I think we might actually crash this time." -Mal Reynolds, Serenity
If you don't want to get robbed, maybe you shouldn't post to Slashdot that you're going to be away for the winter? You link to your website from your user account, and from there we can look up domain information. Your story gives us your state. Luckily, most computer geeks aren't big on breaking and entering.
Turn off the water.
Maybe leave your furnace just above freezing.
Be sure to forward or have your mail stored.
Check out an apc environmental monitoring system, you can have it send you alerts for any number of things, you can hook it up with leak sensors, temperature sensors etc...you can even go as far as an ip camera system to check up on it all in a web interface. Couple that with a friendly neighbor to intervene when you get a problem detected...and voila.....
the answer is obvious. Let Mccully Culkin stay there. He'll defend the house against bumbling burglars with sneaky traps and comical tactics in an action packed holiday movie for the whole family...what was I talking about again?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I've had three outages here at our house in the Midwest within the past 6 months that exceeded 12 hours. A category 2 tornado - no power for a full week and no broadband for 4 more days. One squirrel committing suicide in the substation - 13 hours outage, no broadband. Ice storm a couple weeks ago - 16 hours outage, and I'm one of the really lucky ones. In all cases there was no broadband until power was restored. I've got a generator and my computers worked, but the cable has nodes/repeaters that don't have backup power (dialup so sucks!). Oh, and I don't live out in the country. I'm in a residential area in the middle of town, between the state capital building and the mall.
Even if it's pretty cold outside, as was the case with this ice storm where the temps went into the single digits overnight, assuming you have a fairly well insulated house, it would probably take a couple days to get to freezing inside the house absent any heat. My son didn't get power for two days and it only got down to 39 degrees in their old house without very good insulation.
Here's what to do. When I was a kid and we lived in the country, we heated with a coal fired range in the kitchen and a coal space heater in the living room, if we'd go away in the winter for more than a day, we'd turn off the well pump, drain the water pipes via a valve in the cellar and put antifreeze in the toilet after flushing to empty the tank. It's the same thing you'd do to prepare an RV for Winter. That way, you don't have to worry about high tech not working. Besides, if you have monitoring and it goes off, what are you going to do if you're across the country and don't have family or friends in proximity to the house? If you did have people there, then just have them check the house. That's what we do for my mom who has a house here and spends the Winter in AZ.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You need HomeSaver See http://www.qsystemsengineering.com/ Dr. Null
While this is a Mac solution, you could always pick up a Mac mini. This has motion detection, and can initiate an Apple Script.
http://www.evological.com/evocam.html
Alerting the police that you will be leaving, setting up an EvoCam Mac to alert you via text and to video anyone entering, and perhaps a few lights on different timers would do the trick.
And if you want to be really anal, you can blowdown the pipes with high pressure air and then install a nitrogen purge to minimize corrosion.
...end up owning you.
A similar, but safe, solution, detailed below: RV antifreeze, NOT standard automotive antifreeze and certainly not windshield washer fluid, is safe for potable water systems. It's similar to automotive antifreeze, but uses "food grade" propylene glycol. Prevents pipe bursting down to -50F. Seems standard to still turn off water and drain what you can, then pour in the RV antifreeze everwhere water remains, like the toilet tank and bowl, and sink traps.
1) electronic Thermostat 2) Radio shack alarm dialer 3) Dial-up line The thermostat can be set to be triggered both ways (under X or over X), triggers the radio shack alarm system, which calls me on my phone..
Don't let your local cop in Chicago know that you are on vacation for a few days, weeks, months. I forget if it was Southern or Northern Chicago that was as crooked as they come...... but usually the cops there told the right people in exchange for a percentage of the take or a fee..... and you'd find your place broken into because you told them!!
Living up in the foothills in California I have recently heard of some area house fires happening up here partly because the owners in the Valley activate the heating system via internet or whatever and does not know the condition of the house or system (whether there is a critter caught in the furnace or there is a wiring short). Anyway without human supervision these houses burn for a while unattended.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
...to tell the police that your house will be unoccupied.
I second the motion about renting the house. A local real estate agent would probably handle the details for you in exchange for a portion of the rent.
http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/
That's not true; draining pipes isn't a requirement for shutting them off. Shutting them off decreases the damage possible, and draining them decreases it further (though having the pipes without water can cause other problems which makes draining them a doubly-edged sword.)
I've lived in a house where pipes burst when the water was turned on. As was the heat. Trust me: turning water off is a lot better than nothing, and a lot of the damage was because water wouldn't stop flowing (read: you don't get multiple feet of buildup in your basement from just stuff left in pipes.) We were lucky, too: our cleaner visited our house less than a day after the break.
Odd, in my family we would mod asshole 'parent'.
http://www.sensaphone.com/ makes a number of devices that do that, though most use a phone line. We use them at work to monitor the server rooms for temperature, power, and water (They sell add-on water and other sensors). You can also listen to the room noises through the SensaPhone. We connect them to regular analog phone lines (not connected through the company phone system), so even if the phone system goes down, the devices can contact us. The devices we have are AC powered, and are backed up by D-cell batteries.
If you do a web search for SensaPhone, you'll also find lots of places that sell the SensaPhones and other similar devices.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
I just pay Macaulay Culkin to stay in the house.
But before that, I make sure I have plenty of Home Improvement supplies from the local Home Depot.
Why not shut off the main water to the house while you're gone?
Have you spoken with your homeowners insurance agent? Some policies require that the house be occupied to continue coverage. You may not have much choice but to rent or bring a family member in.
I am not sure about houses, but draining the water pipes would not be adequate to protect against freezing because on horizontal pipes there can be low sections that still remain full of water. People that own motor homes and trailers know that they need to do more than just drain the water to properly winterize an unoccupied trailer. With an RV they usually drain the water and then (if I am not mistaken) somehow blow propelyneglycol antifreeze through the pipes. They also do some kind of bypass to the water heater. Propelyneglycol antifreeze is used because it is less toxic than ethylyneglycol antifreeze.
I know you are talking about a house, but in the case of an RV it is not necessary to winterize it when someone is living in the RV. As long as the heat is on at least slightly, the pipes won't freeze. On the water hose coming into a trailer they usually wrap it with an electric heat tape and split-foam insulation. Most heat tapes say not to use them on anything other than metal pipes, but people do that anyway. I am not sure about houses. I live in Arizona and am not an expert on cold weather although I do live up in the mountains.
Perhaps you could set up a Apache webpage server with a webcam pointed at a large thermometer on the wall. Make sure that you set it up so that you can also see if any water is running along the floor or if of rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Then you could go to your webpage everyday to see what the temperature is. On the webpage don't tell everyone that this is my unoccupied house at a certain address which perhaps has valuables inside. Perhaps passwords or VPN technolgy could be used to limit access to the webpage. Somehow I doubt that is how most people in places like Minnesota do it though
I recently noticed a large puddle of water in front of an unoccupied nearby small business building. When I looked closer I saw water running from under the front door. We had had our first cold weather the day before, so their pipes must have frozen. I left a message on the owners answering machine.
Don't forget about rats. In my neighborhood, I have seen what rats can do to old cars and trucks that are not being used regularly. A few months go by and then the owner looks inside and see the carpeting covered with thousands of rat droppings. Perhaps some rat poison in an abandoned house or car might help.
Listen up now, here's what you need to do.
Hope this helps and if you need help movin let me know. I have a friend with a truck.
In the book the hotel blew up.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Most Burglar / Fire alarm monitoring companies can monitor most anything you consider significant. Temperature, power, water are old and well proved.
and heat the house at 60 degrees to ensure that they save money on heating, while still not risking the pipes bursting
Yeah, cuz...you know...once that old H2O hits 59F you'll have pipes bursting all over the place!
Jack Bauer.
Ok, that was two words.
There are a lot of good suggestions at this site: http://www.mosbybuildingarts.com/faq/winter_power_ outage.php
Check the bottom part, winterizing for an extended leave
You're wrong. The water will freeze and expand whether or not the water is shut off. Having it expand with the water shut off is a lot better than having it expand with the water on. I speak from experience.
My parents just left. Their strategy was to turn the water off, and heat the house at 60 degrees
I hope you have a separate thermostat controlling the basement.
Honestly, I'd never leave a house unoccupied for months at a time.
Hire someone to check on the building and install a web controlled thermostat.
http://www.proliphix.com/ has several nice models with Ethernet access. Some of their pro models even do multi-stage and will report if limits are reached.
You can wire up extra sensors like outside temp.
Don't forget to shutdown and clean your refrigerator. You probably want to leave it open.
Drain the pipes, the toilet tanks, and washer pump and add antifreeze to the traps. Disconnect everything you can. Make sure you have a sump pump and a backup if appropriate.
Make sure someone picks up trash, junk mail and does things like snow removal.
There are services in which you pay for a mechanic to comes to your property on a regular (usually weekly) basis to make sure everything is working properly. I used a service like that when I owned a condo in Florida and was away for most of the year. See if you can find one in your area, or if that fails, pay a friend.
As many have posted already, having a friend or relative either housesit or periodically check can be the best non-tech solution. When I had to be away for an extended time, I had an old friend live in my house, which worked out well.
Another time, I drained the pipes and radiators, opened the faucets, cancelled the mail and papers, disconnected the power and gave the keys to a neighbor. (I am a trusting soul and lived in an area where trusting your neighbor is perfectly sensible.) That also worked fine, though the house was quite musty when I returned.
Obviously those solutions depend on your area and level of trust. New England ranges from urban and such concerns to the Great Northern Woods, where your concerns would mainly be bears, heavy snow and extended power loss. I knew someone in the northern woods who simply had the local snowmobile club stop by when they were grooming the trails. It all depends on your circumstances.
Tech
In other circumstances, I've also used monitoring equipment from SmartHome (http://www.smarthome.com/), which has a good selection of various detectors (including freeze, water, alarm, fire, etc.), phone dialers, and Internet-accessible home automation/control solutions.
I've devised and assembled functional solutions for a friend's house and for a museum for which I was the curator for a time. In the former instance, simulated lighting patterns, temperature & water monitor, and two webcams (one pointed to the driveway to make sure the snowplow guy came by :-) worked fine. (Of course, stopping the mail, papers and milk is mandatory.) For the museum, it was simply to call me if any of the sensors went off or out of range. There was no Internet service there. This was adequate. The Sensaphone, which others have mentioned, is a good choice for that scenario.
-- Dan Jenkins, Rastech Inc.
There are several basic steps that you can use to winterize an unoccupied house. Shutting off the water supply is one good idea. There are also chemicals you pour into drains that will stay in the traps without evaporating and keep sewage fumes and critters from entering the house. Shuttering the windows would also be smart.
If you have shut off the water than keeping the house above freezing may not be absolutely necessary. Allowing it to get too cold might cause other problems with lumber shrinking and with water that's stuck in the pipes freezing. I recommend you have several electric heaters plugged in with their thermostats set to the minimum; that way if the house gets too cold, or if your main heater fails, they'll kick in and keep things from going below zero centigrade.
As for remote monitoring, I'd recommend using a more old-fashioned approach; disable call-answering if you have it, and get an old fashioned answering machine. Then call it once per day. If it picks up, great; if not, either the electric or the phone line is down.
let someone you know house sit. someone you trust. let them live their for free if needs be. it's worth the peace of mind
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Drain your damn water lines!
Our family cabin (off the grid) routinely experiences -25F degrees in the winter. It only takes a few minutes to drain the lines if you have set it up with a drain plug and the pipes are installed to allow a good gravity drain.
You can do this on a house as well. Turn off your water at the meter valve and your basement/crawl-space turn-off valve. After both are turned off you can easily install a "T" with a 1/2 inch plug. You can either drain it at the plug or open your water valves at the sinks/tubs and connect an air line from a compressor and blow all the lines out in just a few minutes. Flush all the toilets so the tanks are empty and then pour some RV antifreeze in the toilets and p-traps.
Why is this modded 0? I've been interested in Zoneminder for a while, but I haven't installed it yet. Apparently, the wife thinks that a working bathroom is more important than webcam fun.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The only way to prevent burst pipes is to purge them (drain all water from the plumbing). Even if you had a monitoring system to tell you when the pipes burst, you'd never be able to get there (or get someone else to get there) before a huge amount of damage was done.
As for the other stuff, sure, you can set up cameras and remote sensors (for temperature, window and door closure, etc.) but you really need someone to be actively watching the place to ward off burglers and other delinquents. Again, by the time you know something's up, it's probably already too late.
just a ghost in the machine.
Some shower valves won't fully drain so you have to blow them out with air or remove the bottom drain cap on the valve. You don't need to worry about this if the valve also goes to a tub (shower tub combo)
Insurance generally requires a check every 48 hourse, you can pay someone to do this.
Nice simple setup I heard about was a temperature sensor which takes the phone off hook if the temp drops too low. The house-check guy calls daily and if the phone is busy, drops by to see what's up.
Yeah, I've installed these things, we used one at an outpatient hospital to monitor the blood fridges, they are pretty impressive bits of kit if you get someone who knows what they are doing installing it.
Try Aquarium Controllers like the Aqua Controller II from Neptune. Computer connected, monitor and notifies you of water levels (a wet basement), temperature, X10 controller for lights. But like a lot of others have said, this is really the least of your concerns.
You can get an IP Camera (Camera you can view and control over the net) quite cheaply. Just set it up in your "abandoned house" and log in every now and then to check that all is ok.
I actually saw the exact device you're looking for while browsing the Skymall catalog on a recent flight..
2 175854&c=
http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=10
Queue up Home Alone on Netflix, dude. Assuming you've got a kid (and yes, I realize that this is Slashdot, so that's quite an assumption), your best bet is to "accidentally" leave your kid at your house when you leave town. The benefits are substantial:
the JoshMeister on Security
Since you are posting on /. you are probably single, have no friends, and the neighbors all think you are
either a Russky spy, a child molester, or worse (g). So...
Sure, a few of the techie solutions are a good idea so you can do some remote monitoring on your own (i personally like the Panasonic network cameras - they detect motion and can record or email pix). And then hire someone to look after the place. There are property management and security companies that do exactly this sort of thing. Some realty companies also will provide this service. A monitored professionally installed alarm system would be a good idea and they have sensors for most anything you can imagine. You don't mention is your house is in a rural or small town setting or a decent sized city. Availability of professionals would, of course, vary by location.
Do you know of any nice (still active) Senior Citizen couples who live nearby? An offer of a small remittance to retired folks is often all it takes to hire someone who has time on their hands, is reliable, and could use the extra bucks.
Good luck with it.
Really, why do slashdotters always look for the most expensive, technical solution? I've lived in Maine my entire life and leaving a house for a winter really isn't a huge deal.
:)
Drain the pipes, turn off the damn furance, put your temperature sensitive stuff in storage. A property of mine spent two winters like this and needed minimal check-ins.
And, why not just ask your neighbors to check in for you if you plan on being away for an extended period of time?
But I suppose, dealing with all the setup and installation and debugging of X10, etc would be much easier. Don't forget to add a float to your oil tank to let you know when you're low.
Just doesn't seem financially feasable to me
1) most of them still live with family.
2) those that don't aren't generally home owners.
3) many of those have never lived in a cold state.
If you live where it's cold your house should already be Winterized (insulation and heat tape on the pipes). Turning off the water at the master shutoof (or at the meter if you don't have one), then draining most of the water out will prevent freezing.
Hire Macaulay Culkin.
I have to believe a lot of /.ers use woot.com. If so, you should be familiar with the Leakfrog, a small plastic frog that sounds an alarm when it gets water. Basically, it watches for leaks, then blares if one occurs.
f rog_water_alarm
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/ideative_leak
http://www.ideativeinc.com/leakfrog.cfm
Obviously, you'd need more than this, like a neighbor to be checking every couple days, or an internet connection to the house, but it's certainly a part of a solution.
In the long term, you're best off renting your place out via a rental agency that will take care of all the maintenance, emergency repairs, tenant screening, and rent collection for a small percentage of the rent. Depending on your house, its location, and the type of furnishings you have, a rental agency might even be able to rent it out for shorter terms, but usually that's more easily done with condos.
In the past I've had friends come by and look in on my condo, but that got old pretty quickly for all involved, not to mention the increasing sense of obligation I felt. As another commenter cautioned, I found out that my homeowner's insurance policy did not cover prolonged absences, and the insurance broker eventually asked emphatically to back out of the policy. Fortunately by that time I had already obtained the services of a rental agency and they had a tenant lined up.
For warnings about freezing, I've found a cheap device that does what I need for my house: the Freeze Alarm (see http://www.freezealarm.com/) which calls a set phone number when the temperature drops below 45F (7C). It uses a 9V battery and must be hooked up to a phone. I paid $30 USD for it at the local hardware store; the web site lists it at $99 USD, so look around for a better price!
A slightly more advanced model will call up to 3 programmed phone numbers, and will also call if the power goes out or the battery is failing; you can also call it to find out the temperature in your home. Both models play a recorded (hardcoded) voice message and continue to call until you acknowledge the alarm. What I like about these devices is they are very very simple; not much can go wrong with them aside from the battery dying. (There is a third deluxe model which hooks up to water alarm and motion detection devices). I considered some of the more complicated internet-enabled setups but I've seen my share of routers, cable modems, and DSL modems require hard resets; many more things can go wrong.
Simply put Alarm.com. They have water sensor and temp sensors. You can actually change the temp on the website. The system uses celluar to communicate and will contant the monitoring station for assistance. You get e-mail/phone calls when a system event occurs. We love our system -- works flawlessly. Not the cheapest but you pay for the quality and the interface. You get the monitoring you want with burglary protection to boot. If you already have a security system, their technology can be intergrated with it. http://www.alarm.com/ To use their stand-alone system with a three door/window sensors and a motion detector, a theromstat and flood sensor you talking about $700. You get $100 off if you have vonage. No I do not work for them, but I do have their system and love it.
As I watch the winter storm problems and electrical outages across the country,
Have you tested the ISP for service during an extended outage? Cable tends to die with a power outage. Most people don't notice simply because they have no power. Some DSL is hosted at the CO and is on the battery/generator backkup and will continue to work unless the line is down, but not always. Sometimes with DSL they locate some network stuff close to a population cluster and even though the loop for telephone is up, the network connection may be down as the satelite locations lose power. Phone service is a priority. Internet is not.
Some cable companies are selling bundles including VOIP telephone and have upgraded to provide service for a day or so into an outage on battery power. If your ISP is the cable company and they sell telephone service, check and see if they will tell you the battery run time in case of a power outage. How many hours and days will I have phone before the system dies. Internet should be the same. Be sure to ask about the phone service. They are trying to sell the service and they should have an idea on the system limitatations. The internet division may be clueless and tell you you won't have power so it doesn't matter.
The truth shall set you free!
It's called a friend. House sitter. Real estate agent.
Why the hell must geeks solve everything with magical gadgets and stupid questions?
For technology, I've used a Radio Shack product called "Home Monitor" for about 20 years. It connects to a phoneline, and dials (no tones) a set of numbers you program if the temperature goes past your limits, if the power goes out, if there's too much noise, or if an external switch changes state.
For procedure, we drain the water out of the water supply system, and make sure the low spots in the drains and traps have some environmentally friendly anti-freeze in them.
For the human touch, we use an on-call caretaker who does a walkabout every couple of weeks, and who is on call.
This is where the Harrisville GrassCam has been hosted for the past 6.5 years. I used to put a Christmas candle inside the PC's box to keep it warm over the winter when there's no heat at all, but one winter the bulb burned out and the PC worked just as well, so I don't bother with it anymore.
If you think about your question, Data Centres have the same kind of requirements. Often they are not manned, yet admins need to keep very close tabs on floods, fires, temperature levels etc. So how do they do it? The install HVAC / Environmental monitor kind of devices & hook them up to an IP network. These devices can also email you, page you, or even call you with a pre-recorded message of what's wrong.
http://www.sensaphone.com/ims-4000.html
Good luck!
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
for the wealthy.
Here you go:s &file=article&sid=704m ilitary/ferret.htm
http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=New
http://www.foster-miller.com/projectexamples/t_r_
That little baby will keep your home safe - guaranteed.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Get a monitored security system. I have one (my dad owns an alarm company and I worked for him for a few years).
My system has a sensor that calls the monitoring center if the temp goes below 40 degrees. There is also a water sensor in the basement...again calls the monitoring center.
Also wouldn't hurt to have a monitored smoke detector or two.
The security system part is nice too, since the place would be unoccupied.
Make sure they relocate the phone cable. They can bury the wire and put the box where the phone comes in into the basement. It can be done, a good alarm company will do this. This will protect against someone cutting the wire.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
The cheapest solution is a freeze alarm.
A company called Control Products (http://www.controlproductsonline.com) makes a line of Freeze Alarms starting at about $100.
It can be programmed to dial a phone number when the house temperature drops below 45 degrees and will tell you (with a voice) that there is a problem.
Of course, if you did have a problem, you better have someone close by to check on the house because you would never get there in time...
But at least they would not have to come and check on the house as often (if at all).
Some models allow you to call the unit and check the temperature and even change settings or check the backup battery.
The more expensive models even allow you to add water sensors, motion sensors, power outage, etc.
http://www.controlproductsonline.com/
And this is what we do every winter, pay a plumber (about $75) to drain your pipes. He'll put anti freeze in the places he can't drain (say the toilets). You could drain the house on your own but you want to pay somebody else that has the insurance to cover in case there is a problem. Another thing we do is call a neighbor that is up there 1 time during the winter and ask them to walk around outside after a storm. If you are in an area that could be damaged by wind (say ocean front, or heavey woods) you may want to put up some plywood over any expensive windows, but as long as the water is off you'll be ok even if a window does get broken. My only other small tip is if you have wooden window sills (on the inside) is to cover them with some newpaper. I know it sounds silly but direct sun on those will cause them to fade over the years, and you can save them a bit with some protection while your away for a long stretch. If you do that and come back in 5 months, the paper will be all yellow and beat, just think what damage it slowly does to your sills! The last thing to do when you leave is shut off your house breaker and any heat (like a furnace). No electricity = no weird electric short causing a fire. Or if there were something crazy happen that damaged your house at least there won't be electrcity going to start a fire. Over all, call a local plumber and he should tell you all the above stuff. It's really pretty simple.
/. but most New England summer rental property has this issue, and they don't put up a web cam with apache to solve it. Sometimes the best solution is the easy one. Anyways, good luck!
I've read a bunch of these tech responses and come on people.. these are solutions far more complicated then needs be. I know this is a question being posted on
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
Yeah, except for the whole part where the boiler blew, reducing the whole hotel into rubble (the book was better than the movie).
Granted if your house is really haunted by an evil power, that may be a good thing...
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
We have two old (1913) non-winterized summer homes that are empty 9 months out of the year. Nothing's fool proof, but we, and our neighbors with neighboring cottages, haven't had any really huge problems in, well about 60 years, and since all seven cottages that are contemporaries of ours are still there, apparently nothing cottage-ending has occurred in 90+ years.
Turn off the water. Open the taps and drain the system backwards from the lowest point. Flush the toilets. Unscrew the j-traps under the sinks and dump them.
Empty, unplug, open, and defrost the fridge/freezer.
Shut off the power at the primary circuit breaker.
Buy a rubbermaid container and put any liquids you're leaving at the house in it- shampoo, 409, drain cleaner, liquid soap, batteries, whatever.
Unplug everything from all the wall outlets.
Lock up.
Keep your roof in good repair. Don't wait for it to start leaking before you replace it, just replace it every 15 years or whatever. Keep an eye on it.
Find someone local who you trust, preferably a neighbor or someone whose commute takes them past or right near the house and pay them a small fee to drive by the house and take a look once a week, and walk around it once a month. Even if they're a friend and insist that they'd be happy to look after your place, insist upon paying them something. It's only fair for their time, and it makes it more likely they'll take the obligation seriously.
There are no guarantees, but it works for us. We've only had one problem big enough to file an insurance claim over for one of the two cottages in 60 years. They're both in the woods and a tree fell on one. The property watcher noticed it the next day and the damages weren't too exorbitant.
Good luck. Install a burglar alarm.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Hi,
I live in central Vermont, where the temperature dips to -35. I'm not sure how north you are, but when we are away, we have folks look in every day. There's a schedule and backup. We missed setting this up once, the power went out, and the pipes burst. Not only was it a mess, but we had to pull up the kitchen floor.
No technology will save you from power outages. Once the power is back up, the water pump prime can be lost and the pump burn itself out. The furnace probably needs to be hand-reset. Refrigerators, freezers, televisions, etc., can blow from power surges or freak lightning. Anything animated is a potential disaster.
If you really want to leave it empty, then others have made the right suggestions: all the water drained from the system, anti-freeze in any drain traps, power and gas shut off. Remove every scrap of food, ball up pillows into doubled plastic bags (rodents love empty houses). Seal any possible large animal entrance and close flues tightly (and leave yourself a note for when you get back).
The best advice: Get someone to live there or at least check in daily -- the latter even if you do shut everything down, so they can report the burglaries and vandalism.
Good luck in the new job!
Dennis
As a kid, our neighbors, who were getting up in age, began heading south every winter. They just gave my parents keys to the house in December when they left and trusted that we could take care of it if anything happened.
To facilitate this, he rigged up a 120v relay to a simple mercury thermostat. If the temperature in his basement dropped below 40--kept at 45 normally I think--a bright light would turn on in their bedroom window, which happened to face our house. It would be hard for us not to notice.
If the power went out, well, then our power was out also and we could go over and see if we needed to fire up the generator he kept in his garage or anything.
I'm sure something similar could be done to trigger a phone call. Just run the pushbutton leads through your mercury thermometer.
You could also install a managed or unmanaged security system that would alert you if doors or windows were opened. I'm sure some of these companies also have temperature sensors they can add.
Dude, you're in the prime situation to capitalize on one of the few valuable things left: Real Estate. Hire a property manager to rent the house and take care of it. They do all the work, take a decent portion of the rent, and you get what's left as profit. It sounds to me like the house is paid off, and if so, this really is the way to go. Keep an eye on how much money you're making off the house in combination with the amount of equity you'll have simply due to the appreciation of land value, and before you know it, you'll have enough credit to buy another house and do the same thing... if you play your cards right, it's not too difficult to take an advantageous situation such as this and become a real estate tycoon (or if tycoon isn't your goal, at least put yourself in a position to where you don't really need to worry about saving for retirement anymore).
Even if you just rent the house and don't worry about further opportunities, it's extra money per month. If you just let it sit there, you'll find it's quite the burden on resources, and there is ALWAYS someone looking for a place to live, with the money to rent from you.
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
I know that insurance companies (like State Farm) spend a lot to promote products that will help in your home. I know for a large investment you can install devices that sense water on your floors (bathrooms/kitchen/basement)When they sense that there is a leak they turn the water off to the house. (although I would assume this might not be a problem. If your leaving your will probably be turning the water off). The same kind of valve system can be used with a temp. sensor to keep the pipes from bursting.
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
>| i will look for that house
I have to agree with the various posts that a technological solution is not going to fix all your problems. Even with a good alarm system and all kinds of fancy automation and webcams, there are some things that only a real person living in the place (or checking on it regularly) will be able to notice.
That having been said, here are some links to Linux Journal articles about doing various home-automation stuff. Perhaps if you implement these, along with a good alarm, and some relatives/friends help, you can have the peace of mind you need:
Home Automation using Python:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8513
Remote Temperature Monitoring:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8780
Automated Temperature Control:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9091
We moved to Puerto Rico for 18 months and kept our house in PA.
1. We needed to change home insurance carriers for the time it was unoccupied. The
one requirement was that it got a walkthrough once per month.
2. We got a monitored alarm system, and contracted for a 1ce/month walk through,
We got entry/exit logs sent to us.
3. We told all the neighbors what we were doing, who could be there and when,
and gave one neighbor a key and passcode.
4. We left electric baseboard heat set on low.
5. In the winter, we shut off the water and drained the pipes.
Year round, we turned off all unnecessary breakers
6. When leaving a refrigerator or freezer unplugged, be sure to leave
the doors open to prevent must/mold/mildew.
7. We didn't bother with dust covers on furnishing. With no people
moving in the house, no dust gets kicked up.
8. If you go back and forth a couple of times, as we did, make
a checklist of startup and shutdown, and use it.
9. We contracted with a lawncare service, and called the neighbors to
check that the work was being done.
Better than paying someone else to house sit, rent the house. Instead of having an expense you get an added income. If you're worried about not being there while renting the house out, then hire a property management company. Or you could get some realty companies manage the property. And they aren't that expensive, the going rate is around 5% of the rent. Odf course you'll still have to pay for any repairs but even then the managers cannhire and work with whoever does the repair work. Another possibility is to House swap. This is where you find someone where you're going to who wants to go where you are. You live in their house while they live in yours.
FalconShould there be a Law?
One thing my parents have a home is a guardian security system. It's setup to call us(and then the cops) if anyone breaks in through any window or door. Glass break sensors, motions sensors, contat sensors.
It also has the very nice feature of calling you and the fire dept if the fire protection is tripped.
Might be worth the monthly fee to prevent break-ins and fires.
Huh, weird. I've got a somewhat similar problem, not exact, but somewhat. I'll be leaving my abode for likely what will turn out to be the coldest month for a not insignificant amount of time. My solution is pretty coarse, but it works for me.
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
I suggest you watch this 1990 documentary. It shows the many methods in which your house can be protected around Christmas time.
Alarm.com
On the otherhand, this question seems almost custom made for this response, so who knows if it's astroturfing.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Your "100% efficient" heater will fill your house with CO2 until the oxygen is depleted. After that, the heater will cease functioning, and you'll have lost your temperature control. To solve this problem, you need to ventilate the house, and that means less than 100% efficiency.
http://outcampaign.org/
Smarthome sells a couple of devices for this purpose, the best they carry probably being the Sensaphone which has been mentioned already and is a pretty slick unit. Another similar high-end device to take a good look at is the HomeSaver, a relatively new product available here:
http://www.qsystemsengineering.com/
Aside from additional control features, probably the biggest advantage with the latter device is that it employs a rechargeable battery backup system so if the power goes out it will keep you informed for about 50 hours or so and then recharge itself when the power comes back on, making it ready for the next outage. The Sensaphone only runs for about 12 hours on 6 D-cell alkaline batteries (???!) so if the outage lasts longer than that, the unit will be "dead" the next time the power goes out, until you go back to wherever your home is and change the batteries. Of course you could always have a trusted neighbor change the battery for you.
Good luck.
- Phil
There are plenty of technical tips in this thread. I'll throw another type of tip at you. You really need to make sure that you have insurance on your home. I wouldn't mention that the house is no longer occupied. That would jack your rate up. I would make certain that your home was fully covered though and that it include damage from bursting water pipes, winter weather damage, vandals, etc. That way if something does happen you can at least be covered.
I winterize my mountain cabin every year and since the late '60s have not had a problem. Considering that it gets to -40 or colder every winter in the mountains where it is, I know that things would freeze if I let them. The frost line is at least 2 feet below the surface too.
Turn off all the water at the mains. If you use a well, drain the lines, tank and pump. (You'll need to bring water when you return to prime the system but usually only 5 gallons or less is needed.) Usually a valve in or near your front yard will control the water to your home. Just turn it off. If you can't find it, there is also a valve in your home that does the same thing but, it is exposed.
Then drain everything that has water in it -- don't forget the hot water heater, toilet tanks, etc.
Pour a half bottle of antifreeze down the sinks, into the dishwasher, toilets, and other plumbing that can't be drained. If you are on Septic system, make sure you use an antifreeze product that won't kill your tank!!! Leave all the doors under sinks and such open to allow residual heat to get to the pipes.
Have a nice trip! Bring priming water with you or get some near by when you return. Turn on the power. If you're on a well, prime the pump and turn it on. Run the water for about 5 minutes on every faucet to flush the antifreeze away and clean the pipes and you're back to normal.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
The Netbotz unit (a 320 would do) with a fluid sensor on the floor would monitor your house's temperature, humidity, and air speed as well as provide a door contact switch and sense water on the floor. Units with and without cameras are available. A multifloor dwelling would be a bigger challenge, of course. http://www.netbotz.com/
I don't work for them; I just use their products and am reasonably satisfied.
--altadel
fucking relax dude.
Yes but, to be fair, it was also a demon.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
OK, let me get this straight. A Stephen King novel... is better than a Stanley Kubrick movie starring Jack Nicholson pretty close to his prime. I find that hard to believe. I'll have to check it out some time. If it was better than finally seeing what Jack was typing, seeing REDRUM in the mirror, seeing that bolt open, and a generally bright setting made horrifying, then that book must be pretty good.
I have freaks! I did something right...
House and job in another state: $PAYCHECK
Cars : $WHATEVER
Leaving town without turning off your water: $REALLY_BIG_NUMBER
Sheesh, this makes it? Nobody in New England's heard of winterizing? Us hicks out in Montana have managed to figure it out, and we're on the wrong side of the Mississippi...
Living in Florida.
Turn off all unnecessary breakers/disconnect fuses. Turn off the water. Set the thermostat to 40 degrees F. Ask a trusted friend to check on the place every week or so.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
My folks winterize their cabin every year. Here's what they do: 1. Turn off the water at the meter 2. Drain all of the water from the system at it's lowest point 3. Flush all of the toilets a few times to get the water out of the tanks 4. Pour automotive antifreeze in all of the traps (don't forget the toilets) We have not had a broken pipe yet.
http://www.sensaphone.com/
Turn off the water at the meter, and have ALL the water pipes *professionally* flushed out, the same way you would winterize a sprinkler system. Do the same for anything that contains water, like a washing machine, hot water heater, hot water heat, etc. Then if the heat does fail, no harm done.
Nothing else will be harmed by freezing. (I speak as a former resident of Montana and similar climates, where winter temps regularly hit -65F, *before* wind chill.)
If there's an exposed water pipe that you can't flush, invest in some electric "heat tape" -- you can buy this (and get instructions on how to install it) at any good mobile-home supply store. It automatically comes on at about 40 degrees, and uses very little power.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I've done this in northern Illinois before to perfect effect:
-Drain the pipes.
-If you can't drain pressure tanks or hot-water heaters put just enough electric heat on to keep the basement above freezing. (It doesn't take much.)
-Throw a splash of non-toxic "RV" antifreeze in the toilets (bowl and tank) and drains.
-Empty and turn off the refrigerator.
-Remove canned goods.
This takes a few hours to set up, and you can just let it freeze.
Check out Zoneminder.com. It is one of the unknown, great open source linux programs out there.
The configuration&installation is not trivial, but you can hone/prove your linux skills in setting this program up-It interfaces with MYSQL and PHP.
First, go outside and turn your water OFF. You aren't going to be there, so you don't need anything that the water is going to provide anyway. This protects you from a broken pipe flooding the place or anything like that. Turn off the hot water heater as well.
Second, turn off your gas for the same reason. Not that the gas line is going to freeze and rupture, but it's a good idea nevertheless.
Third, if you have a heater that is electric instead of gas (yeah, like how many of those are around?) or if you don't find it necessary to turn off the gas, leave the thing on and set to some obscenely low temperature that will keep your electronic equipment from freezing over. (Hey, this is Slashdot!) You probably don't want ice crystals forming on your equipment so it's wet when you return and heat it back up. Just a thought.
Since you're keeping your broadband connection, you can spend some time coding up a little something that runs off the parallel port or whatever. Basically, the idea I'm getting at is that you could always stick a few webcams up if you want, a few temperature sensors, etc., and wire those into a Linux box. You don't even really need creative software for it. A simple script that polls the sensors and pages/calls/emails/whatever you if one of them breaks some threshold would work fine. And with the webcams, at least you'd be able to look and get some peace of mind if you're paranoid. You could code up a script that captures images at one minute intervals and stores them, and inserts temperature readings and such into a PostgreSQL database. You don't need fancy viewing software: Just use one of those web gallery viewers for the pictures, and just read the temperature/whatever data out of the database raw.
Only it doesn't call you, you call IT! It should be at your local hardware store. I worked at an Ace Hardware back in the day and we had it there. Basically, you call it, and when it answers it will give you a signal to let you know whether or not it's too cold in your house. Just go find one and read the instructions :)
Also, keep the house like 45-50F. Not ANY lower. Just because the air is that warm doesn't mean your pipes are that warm!
Step 1: Obtain one of these. (Or at least the lead character so time-warped.)
Step 2: Update property insurance.
Step 3: Obtain lots of sweets and caffeine and sprinkle liberally.
Step 4: (Optional) Record via web-cams, cut up into holiday movie, and profit!
Disconnect the pipes from the main and flush them with compressed air. Pour sealant oil down the all the drains to fill them, mineral oil is ok. Disconnect electricity, water and heat as it makes it unappealing to 'guests'. Install a reasonably good burgler alarm system. Remove anything of value. Install heavy curtains. Have all mail forwarded or collected daily. Have someone local who can check on the property weekly.
Renting out the property may be an option but if you go that route I'd let a property manager handle it. They can see that the place is maintained, collect money, process evictions, etc.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
*Takes off his Spelling Nazi helmet*
Sorry. Couldn't help it.
What ever happened to turning off the water and draining the pipes? Where you actually thinking of keeping the house heated the entire time you are gone? For break ins and fire, just get a security system.
http://apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=47
http://apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=4
I've read the book and seen the film, and the film is by far superior.
(But then, I would say that, wouldn't I.)
deus does not exist but if he does
I envy those who won't get this joke because they don't know what you're referring to.
This has both of them beaten!
l
http://www.angryalien.com/0504/shiningbunnies.htm
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
"Shut off the power at the primary circuit breaker." ...
"Install a burglar alarm."
A coal-fired one?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
If anything, I would also recommend that if you have a gas heated boiler and you can't drain the boiler you should have an additional electrical heater on the water that kicks in at temperatures below 10 degrees C. This will keep the water warm enough for a rather long time to avoid freezing even during long power outages. It's even a good idea to turn of the gas since lowering the temperature of the house may expose minimal gas leaks and if there is a refrigerator or other thermostat it may cause a fire. (Personally I'm rather wary of gas, it's a perfect accelerant in fires).
A dehumidifier with a permanent drain is also a good idea, since the relative humidity tends to rise when the temperature goes down with increased risk of mold, mildew and bugs in the house.
If the incoming water pipe is in the basement it should be sufficient to cover it with some insulation. The ground under a house is normally sufficiently warm to avoid freezing the water. (unless you live in an area with permafrost). If you have the incoming water in the ground plane a heating by a lightbulb is sufficient to keep up the temperature well in a small closed compartment. (25 watts is good enough for several degrees, and a thermostat can be used to keep the cost down.)
One issue that you should be aware about is that if you have a basement and an insufficient draining around the walls of the basement you will have to make sure that the soil closest to the basement walls doesn't freeze since that will cause an immense pressure on the walls with subsequent foundation damages. In this case you have to check first what kind of soil that is on the outside of your basement walls. Sand and gravel is normally OK if you don't have a very water-rich environment, but older houses and houses where the costs of the foundation has been cut may have anything. Watch out for fine grained soil and clay since that kind of material tends to contain a large amount of water.
One detail that you will have to let your neighbors check out for is the amount of snow on the roof. Normally not a problem if it's up to the correct building standards for the area but extreme weather causes extreme loads and should be taken care of before a problem arises.
If everything checks out you will have a house that should stand against long period of sub-zero temperatures without major damage. Some minor effects may occur due to variations in temperature contraction/expansion like small paint cracks if the ground work hasn't been done properly in the joint between wall boards and similar things, but these effects is more a matter of time before they show up anyway.
And anyway - use your fantasy and take help of Murphy's Law.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I use the Motorola homesight system for this very purpose. We have a wireless camera and a water sensor attached to an old PC running Windows XP. We get text messages and e-mails at a prescribed time every day and get an immediate message if the water sensor gets wet. Here's a link: http://broadband.motorola.com/consumers/products/h mez2000/
The video does a great job explaining system capabilities.
Ron :-)
You just HAD to invoke Godwin's law. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
Stopping Content Restriction Annulment and Protection means not calling it DRM.
I've been working on houses since 1985.
Hire a realitor to manage rental of your property.
Do _not rent to friends/family.
Leave it empty and you _will be calling me or someone like me to fix things.
It's not rocket science man, and then just let your house freesze.
If some things need to be kept heated (electronics and such) put them in a storage room with 2 bare lightbulbs.
The bulbs will keep the temperature somewhat moderate and won't use too much power.
The way I'd do it if I had the time/inclination/money would be to build my own house monitoring box. I'd have to build several bits of kit specifically, like a temperature monitor (may I recommend the LM35 as a good temperature sensor), a water alarm, and others, link them up to a 'head box' that communicates with the computer.
The computer would have a demon on it that if it received a warning (e.g. Temp > 50C or Temp
You'd have to have a BIG UPS to run it in case the power failed (broadband router and all). Hell, you could have an ammeter on the power into the box, that if it's turned off, the UPS not only kicks in, and fires up a diesel generator (It'd have to have a starter motor), now that would be cool! This is probably only viable if you have the money, time and skills to build it. I'd get stuck at the money part, as I'd estimate it to easily pass the £1500 mark (thats GBP). Especially if you want to go for low power motherboards for the main computer, like a Nano-ITX.
Also, for full redundancy, you'd likely need more than 2 generators, more than 2 of each sensor, more than 2 main computers, more than 2 UPSs so you'd easily double your costs.
Also, you may like to add some IP camera's into the bargain, which can upload their images to a remote FTP server ever 2 seconds, for a kind of CCTV. Don't forget your burglar alarm!
You could also hook up microphones that record sound, and if the sound level's greater than a certain amount (e.g. like a window being broken), it could email you.
This solution should work, though it would cost a s**t load of money, easily in excess of £5000, and then you've got to /build/ the damn thing, and set it up, and program it, and test it. It's not an easy task, but I bet it could be done.
decaf
I built a house 'way up on a mountain (much cheaper with no building permits, licensed contractors, or taxes) and lived there 10 years. We moved when I got a new job and my son started crawling - it wasn't designed with kids in mind.
It's not the kind of place that could be sold, unfortunately: when solar power turned out to be impractical without large scale clearing and a windmill was too visible, I ran limited power in from a neighbor to charge the solar system. With a cistern, a self-contained composting toilet (a well was impossible, and the county would never have given me a septic permit, even if I was silly enough to ask) and 100 lb propane tanks that I could haul in by pickup truck, we did well and now we have a summer cabin.
Winterizing was easy enough: I drained everything down to the cistern (removed the water filter bowls and ran the (12 volt diaphragm) pump dry. I left a pilot running in the hot water heater rather than drain it (not enough pressure/too much rise for a tankless heater); the composter isn't hurt by freezing as long as it isn't being actively used, it just starts up again in the spring. Since all the sinks go to a simple gray water drain and the toilets are airline type, there was only one (master) trap to empty. The cistern has never frozen more than a skim, and that's proven not to hurt the floating ozonator.
The downside is that it's more trouble to put the place online than it's worth, so we seldom stay there anymore. That may change when my son gets old enough to appreciate living in the woods.
My biggest worry is a roof leak. It's 15 years old now and I'm not looking forward to redoing it (only a 600 square foot footprint, but 3 stories up.) My father lives nearby and keeps an eye on the place every week or two.
1. Check with your insurance company about their policy regarding unoccupied houses. Many have a policy that they will cancel the insurance unless there is someone looking after it.
2. Get someone to check the house regularly. You may have to pay. I believe that some real estate agents will provide this service. When I had to do this, I arranged for the person checking the house to initial a calendar each time they visited so that there would be a record of visits in case I needed to make an insurance claim.
3. Drain the pipes. There is usually a way to completely drain the pipes in a house. By draining the pipes and shutting off the water, you will minimize any chance of the pipes freezing.
4. Don't, repeat don't, shut off the heat if you have a concrete basement. The cold temperatures can cause major cracks in the walls.
Did the poster mention a basement?
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
I oversee the winteriztion of vacant homes 200 times a year or more. In five years I have never once had a problem If the work was done correctly and nobody tampered with the plumbing system. 1. Turn off power to your hot water heater. If you know what you are doing and can do so safely, physically remove the hwh breaker (or fuse). If not, put a piece of tape across the breaker which should now be in the off position. Turn off power to the well (if any) in the same fashion. Leave a reminder on the electric panel to ensure that you turn the water back on BEFORE you turn on the hot water heater. Turn off the gas valve to the hot water heater as an extra layer of protection - if you fire up your hwh before it has been refilled you are out one hwh. 2. Turn off the water supply to the house. Master valves on both sides of the water meters if you are on municipal water. (If you are on a well, once the power is off open a faucet and let your pressure tank run dry at this point - different than opening the valves in the step further down. If you don't do this you run the risk of losing your pressure tank which can cause your well to burn out. My house was sitting vacant for about 2 years before I bought it and this was a problem.) 3. Hook up a hose to the hwh and drain the water to your floor drain, sump pit or out the window. Opening the highest hot water valve in the house will help it drain quicker. 4. Open the lowest and highest cold water valves in the house to allow those pipes to drain 5. Using an air compressor, blow out the supply lines throughout the house. Any decent plumber can tell you how or google up some accurate information. 6. Scoop out as much water from toilet tanks as you can. 7. Get the *PINK* antifreeze (RV/Marine). Pour generous quantities into the toilet tanks, bowls, and down all of your drains. Pour some into your dishwasher and washing machine and run a partial cycle (no rinse) to get the antifreeze into the pumps and internal hoses. If you have a pool or hot tub you will need to take some additional steps, for the most part along these lines. Above ground pools and some in-ground pools without rigid covers get a large, inflatable air pillow floated in the middle to make the cover slope down towards the edges so the water and ice doesn't puncture a hole in the middle, gets some (but not all!) of the water drained and may or may not need plugs for the water intakes. Your miles may vary, consult a pro on these devices. If you have boiler, consult an expert. Draining water and/or filling with antifreeze is a bit involved and entirely inadvisable in some cases - I've seen many older systems go down for winterization then never come back up because of issues with old seals, corrosion and other nasties. If you have steam heat then things can become even more muddled about. Again, consult an expert. Finally, on your way out, hit the power to the master breaker. When you return you will be able to restore power to the house and will be glad of the tape (or removed breakers) that serve as a reminder not to turn on the well or hot water heater until you are actually ready to do so. Turn off the gas/propane at the master valve.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I regret not posting sooner, as my contribution may get overlooked, but - having done this before, here are some suggestions:
Water - Incoming
- turn off the water to the house and open all inside valves, sinks, showers. Also open all outside valves.
- many houses have end plugs on the plumbing at a low point, so that with the incoming water off and the valves all open, these plugs can be removed and the plumbing drained
- turn off the hot water heater and drain it, regardless of if it is gas or not.
- Even if your house's plumbing is not equipped to be fully drained, by opening all inside and outside valves and draining the hot water, the chances are good that some point in the system will be low enough to allow you to significantly empty the pipes.
Water - Outgoing
- Pour some automotive antifreeze into every drain to protect the 'P' trap from freezing. Don't forget the shower / bath tub / floor drain in the basement, etc.
- Without adding more water to them (water is off right) add quite a bit of antifreeze to the dishwasher and clothes washer. Then run them a bit at the point in their cycles that drains, to get some antifreeze into their inner workings.
- Open the back of toilets, and - yes - add a healthy bit of antifreeze to the water in them. Then flush. This should empty out the backs and any water left behind should be protected from freezing.
Preventing Extended Sub-Freezing Temps
- If you're not afraid of burglars / vandals, leave the curtains and shades open on sunny windows to let in some light and help keep ambient temperatures above freezing
- Open all cabinet doors under sinks, open closet doors where water heater / laundry equipment etc. are, especially on outside walls. Let the air circulate.
- Use ceramic portable electric heaters. The 'cube' type are very safe, have a built in thermostat, don't cause fires, and can be placed where you want them. Place them close to critical plumbing areas.
- Check your local hardware store for things like electrical outlet attachments with built-in thermostats that don't allow current to flow unless the temperature is below a certain critical level.
- The above type thermostats in conjunction with electrical heat tape wrapped around pipes in areas of extra concern work very well.
- Finally, even though you set the thermostats on the electric heaters to their lowest points, put an electric timer between the electric heaters, set up to be on 1 hour / off one hour, so they don't run continuously. Most of these heaters will run until the temp is above 60F, and that may use too much juice for your taste.
Other Suggestions
- Get a lot of electric timers, and put a lot of lamps on them, all over the house. Consider putting a radio and/or a television on timers as well, with the volume up loud enough to just hear from directly outside. This will discourage break-ins, and the lamps also contribute to ambient temperatures
- Turn off the gas. Do not chance something bad happening with the gas - if you're not there, it probably will.
- Have your mail held or forwarded to you, don't let it pile up
- Have the newspaper delivery stopped
- Have a neighbor / friend / person you hire check the place once in a while
- Check the place yourself if you can, every 4 to 6 weeks
Finally, some earlier post suggested contacting a local extension office for your area and seeing if there isn't a pamphlet published on the subject. That seems like a great suggestion to me - having never done so myself. Anything such a publication suggests that contradicts what I've said should take precedence, of course.
I hope some of these suggestions help. They've worked for me in the past.
Hpycmpr
If you go to Bladox you can buy an add-on that has various I/O points. A simple mechanical thermostat will give you a signal for low temp, and water is conductive so you can create something for that too. A third switch for power failures and you're set to go for signalling.
:-).
:-).
Empty water pipes where you can, then switch off the main tap and leave the taps open (use air where possible to drive out water). Use electric heating to keep the house at 10C or higher (not too much higher, you're just trying to fight condensation, mould forming and freezing pipes).
And check 3 times that you have indeed turned the gas off. Once you turn the main tap off, once by lighting a ring on your gas cooker and watch it die so the pressure is off the line and 3rd by going back to the tap and check it's still off. Gas is very unhelpful in preserving building integrity
With the above mobile you'll be able to monitor, and the thing will still SMS you even when power fails (unless the cell goes down with it, so maybe set up a watchdog SMS so you know it's still live) - dirt cheap solution, and all it takes is a cheapo pay-as-you-go mobile phone.
Oh, and the motion sensor will tell you about earthquakes and someone stealing the phone itself
Just make sure you keep the account topped up..
Insert
I rented a house a few years back that went. All of the "work" was handled by a rental agency -- payments went to them, they handled maintenance, etc.
Just don't go for the cheapest one; I could tell stories about the poor service we received. (And in a couple of cases the lack of response damaged the house.)
in soviet russia they pay you instead if you paying them to monitor your house!
I found this nifty little device, temperaturealert.com, it's simple and seems to do everything I need to monitor temperature.
You could control you house from a distance, heat lights etc.... give the impression that you are still there when you want them to think you are.... also set up cams on the outside and inside of the house...so you can view it, you could have the cam start only when motion is detected but then again it depends if you paid 70,000 for you house ,and don't
have squat in it or if you own a half a million dollar home...
: )
I do not own property, never mind a second property. This past summer, I lived outdoors, got free internet through wireless at the library and I've heard of another programmer living outdoors for years. For the winter I am housesitting. I've been taking care of the house as storms pass through and making sure the pipes don't burst and keeping an eye on things.
Get to know *and be very nice to the neighbors.*
Put a locked farm gate at driveway to keep vehicles off the property.
Post property - no trespassing. (maybe?)
Use plexiglass windows for small second story windows.
Padlock shutters for first story windows.
Construct with doors that open out to prevent kick-ins.
Leave nothing of value on site. Get a utility trailer for valuables like generator, chainsaw, TV/Stereo, Computer, ATV, bikes, boat, fridge, ect. Setup longterm storage unit for a trailer at an insured rental facility in the closest town.
As best possible, clear the home site of trees that could fall.
Forget video cams, no electricity. Plus, if I were a kid this is the first thing I would F up.
Keep no liquids that could freeze in the cabin or trailer. Outhouse pluming works well enough in cold weather.
Optional: 12 gauge shotgun and a visible gun rack in your pickup truck's back window. This is for the neighbor's kids to see whenever visiting the property.
These are all great comments. One I haven't seen yet on this topic is to add a watchdog timer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchdog_timer ). I have a system (an old PII with various added I/O) that monitors via cameras and thermostats (it controls the HVAC too). The watchdog timer is wired to the PC reset input (where the reset button is normally hooked up). It does a hard reboot in the event of most software (app or OS) crashes. It even allowed me to use Windows on the monitoring system. :) It's been running over 4 years.
I've had to many problems with renters, even with companies or others looking after a place.
I'm currently using Control4 (http://www.control4.com) and X10 devices to control and monitor my place. I use the system to turn on/off water heater, control thermostats (Control4), use (Control4) programmable light switches and have the lights and A/V equipment programmed for that lived in look, if I'm away for awhile.
Take a look at http://www.klein.com/thermd/ - I have spent a lot of time researching hardware and implementing (free/open) software to monitor, log, and report on environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, switches, and soon electrical consumption). My software will certainly do what you ask, and some hardware vendors have the alarms built-in to their data collection devices.
Check out NetBotz products (now owned by APC). They do full environmental monitoring (watch temperature, humidity, airflow, and listen for noises like alarms, etc). They also have water detectors, and can even be set up to control contacts which you can feed into relays to trigger stuff (lights, pumps, HVAC, etc). They also have cameras which are capable of detecting motion and e-mailing you the first x seconds of video after motion is detected. They are primarily intended for data centers, but I don't see why they wouldn't work in this case as well if you have the money to spend.
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
OK, you guys have posted some good ideas (and a lot of crap, which is why I come here). Let me include some more info to better explain my situation:
- I can shut the water off
- I have family in the area that can check in
- I will often be able to drive back if I need to
- I will keep the house temp above freezing (55 or so?)
- I will be coming back, say once a month, to support a local customer, as well as to see my family
- I have too much "stuff" to move everything out to an apartment; the distance is also a factor here (i.e. no renting)
What I should have asked is, what kind of "instant alert" type things are there for this situation? Having someone stop by every few days is good, but when a pipe breaks, for example, if someone can get to the house within 30 minutes (compared to 4 days) that can mean the difference between losing everything and losing _some_ stuff.
How do I get nofitied when:
1) the temp drops below xx
2) water is detected in the basement
3) any other events I should know about immediately?
Thanks everyone!
-- You can't drink all day. (Unless you start in the morning...)
Drain ALL the pipes after shutting water off at the mains. Leave all faucets open, empty the toilet resevoirs.
Pour antifreeze down toilets/sinks- note, you need quite a bit. Clean out refrigerator and leave doors open. Don't forget your outside spigots either.
That's it, you're done. We did this for 15 years or so, before we sold the house. Never had any paint problems either. The house was located in New Jersey, on an ocean island, and the temp would often be below freezing for a month at a time. We never, ever heated the house, since electric heating would have been far too expensive.
..........FULL STOP.
One word: automation
One site : http://www.x10.com/
... from http://www.globestarsystems.com/ and you can download it from www.globestarsystems.com/connexall7322.htm to try it out. The server will run for an hour but you can restart it without loosing any of your configs. It can be as simple as sending you an email when something happens or as complex as shutting off the gas or whatever. It's very complete and it can do anything.
There is a very easy solution to know if your NE house is too cold while you're away:
1) Obtain an old thermostat. It has to be of the mechanical variety that does not require electrical power.
2) Mount this on the wall close to a phone jack. If using the kind with a mercury switch, be sure to mount it the correct side up.
3) Connect the thermostat directly to the phone line.
4) Set the temperature on the thermostat to its minimum temperature, usually 55F.
5) While you are away, call your house every day. If the phone rings, the house is above the set temperature. If you get a busy signal, the house is too cold and you need to get someone out there pronto.
This is not a unique idea. There is/was actually a product that did just this called a "Telefreeze".
Every year I hibernate my summer house. Here is how I do it:
0) Purchase a mechanical pump for about 10$ at the hardware store which plugs into
an electrical drill for power. Connect two short hose normally used for connecting your washer.
1) Purchase 25 gallons of plumbing anti-freeze liquid that's normally used for RVs and boats. The stuff is not poison, so there's no problem injecting it into your water system.
2) Turn off the hot water tank heaters
3) Close the main water faucet by which the water enters the house.
4) Empty the hot water tank
5) If possible, disconnect the water tank from the rest of your system by connecting the incoming (cold) water pipe to the outgoing (hot) water pipe. This way you have a closed circuit.
6) Connect the pump to the external water faucet that's outside the house, or to the water faucet connected to the washer inside the house, and have someone inside the house open one faucet; start injecting anti-freeze by activating the drill which runs the pump until the person inside sees the red anti-freeze liquid coming out of the faucet. Then close the faucet, and repeat for the next faucet, until all faucets have been spitting out anti-freeze.
7) Flush each toilet bowl, and pour one gallon of anti-freeze in the tank and in the bowl.
8) Pour some anti-freeze in the drains of all sinks, the shower, bath, etc.
Doing all that should not take you more than a few hours. You might need walkie-talkies or two cell phones to communicate with the person who is helping you inside the house.
Personnally, I turn off all electricity inside the house, except for the refrigerator. Refrigerators which stay close for too long stink.
I have never had problems with sensitive electronics stying in the cold like that, but if you are worried about this, you can always keep a little heating inside the house so that it stays above freezing temperature.
As for electric black outs, it will take your house - depending on the quality of the isolation - between one and two days before it loses its warmth, so you have time to gt back to the house in case of a power failure and install a gasoline power generator on the outside of the house that will connect to electrical heaters inside the house. Do not forget that propane heaters are not meant for indoor use and you could die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
As other slashdotters mentioned, it's good to have a neighbor checking out the house once in a while.
Good Luck
A house is not a seasonal cabin.
The assumptions that went into the construction, the quality of fit & furnishings, the neighborhood, none are comparable between the two, and any advice/insights from one are only minimally applicable to the other.
If you want to know what happens to unoccupied houses in your area talk to your police department, your insurance agent, and a local real estate agent ('cause they're often dealing houses that have been empty for months or even years while estate are settled & the like.) They'll give you a realistic set of expectations, and frankly it'll scare you. Breakins, leaks that cause huge damages, mildew & must, cracking wallpaper & appliances with rust spots.
So tenants are typically the solution. But not annual renters, instead go through an agency that specializes in fully/semi furnished short term renters contracts. If you're clever you'll go for visiting executives, faculty, folks in town for about as long as you'll be away who are looking for a move-in fully furnished place. They're typically responsible people, and just as importantly the agency is your agent: Their job is to find & vet your tenants, handle the hot water tank that dies on the Friday of a three day weekend, collect the rent, do all of the things that would be so awkward while you're away.
Finally, even if everything is all set up, have a friend or family member pop by every month or so to give the property a look over. Give your neighbors your email address and ask that they get in touch if there are any concerns. Give the police department and your insurance agent call with your phone number & emergency contact information.
do it right and you'll have a fine time away. Do it wrong and your largest investment will become the Haunted Mansion.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
One option is to put heat tracing on the domestic water pipes to keep them from freezing. This will of course only work while there is electricity. There is a small thermostat (not adjustable) on the heat tracing that indicates when the pipes reach a certain temperature and then will energize the heat tracing and keep your pipes from freezing and eventually bursting. It's not too difficult to drain the hot water side of the system within your house. Turn off the electric/gas heater and drain it (opening up the closest hot water valve.) As far as flooding from melting snow goes, unless you install a sensor that will annunciate to your computer when there is water in your basement, I don't think you'll know unless you have a friendly neighbor that will keep an eye on things like that for you. Alternatively, pay some guy $1000 to look after your place while you are away. It'd be worth the peace of mind IMHO.
Uh, this seems like a no-brainer.
Get a good alarm system installed.
Include flood and freeze sensors.
Pay for monitoring.
This may qualify you for a discount on your homeowner's insurance.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Use this:
http://www.sensaphone.com/sensaphone-1104.html
I have several installed all over Minnesota and they work very well.
Much as the Slashdot community is a repository of information that's always wise and correct ;), I'd talk with some locals about this one. Threats to your home vary tremendously from area to area.
Residential real estate is a local business -- which is also why it's mostly resisted corporate conglomeration. Issues can vary tremendously from property to property, even among units in the same building.
--Tom "IAAAREB" (I Actually Am A Real Estate Broker)
Tom Geller
Everything you are looking for, and more you will find here. Goto the "Temp Control" section, they have all sorts of sensors, and transmitters, and there are flood sensors on there too.
My homeowner's policy (which is pretty typical) requires that a person checks on my house while I am away. You may find yourself without insurance coverage if you don't give the keys to someone and arrange for them to drop by every couple of days
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Greetings from New Hampshire. We can lose power for two weeks at a time during a bad ice storm in some parts here. Aside from that, we have several power outages a winter, and the cable company doesn't always get their end up and running right away.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I actually work in facilities management, and would like to point out an opportunity here for the smart Slashdot folks. There is a large company named "Honeywell" that handles a huge chunk of the automated building controls industry. They have some of the stuff you're looking for in this post - at a ridiculous cost, however.
If you go to their site and look into their products, you will quickly notice that building controls are WAY BEHIND the technological level present in most calculators and wristwatches. There has been very little innovation there. I'm depressed everytime I go to a meeting with the national Honeywell representatives and have to listen to a big long presentation about their latest thermostats, etc., and how they almost have connectivity with a Palm Pilot, but not yet, there's a few bugs, etc.
It would be SO great and relatively easy for someone to throw in some smarts and take the entire controls industry, as well as the HVAC mainboard industry (smart, CPU controlled furnaces, etc). Either that or just get something started and scare the big companies enough that they buy you out.
1) Pay a professional to winterize your house - including draining pipes, wrapping supply lines with heaters, etc. then pay someone to check it every week at least, clean up the yard, check for mail, etc.
2) Get someone to live in it while you are gone.
Make sure FedEx / UPS / DHL has not got a signature release or else they will simply leave packages on your doorstep.
Don't screw around with your own solution - the savings aren't worth the hassle. I had a friend do that - came back to an inch of ice on his driveway and a flooded absement - the neighbor called when he say the ice forming and water running out.
If you know any snowbirds ask them what they do and recommend.
Be sure your insurance is up to date and will cover you while you are gone.
Personally, #2 is a better bet especially if you have a friend who needs a place.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I know that there are several networkable monitors for temperature, water sensors, etc. available for sale. Some APC UPS backups used to have optional moduals for temperature/humidity etc.
The heat released by most P4 systems will keep your pipes from freezing as well
I recently read an anecdote by a computer repair shop owner about a woman who left her computers in her (New England?) summer home every winter and they never would boot up properly come spring. It seemed the freezing and cooling cycles screwed up the circuit boards and chips. His solution for her; take the computers with her when she went South for the winter.
Very simple - an alarm does everything that you have asked for, plus covers breakins, etc. Use Ademco equipment (used in banks, armories, etc). Any self respecting geek can wire it up yourself, or you can hire it out. High and low temp sensors are available, water bugs (detect water on the floor), smoke detectors (nice to know when the fire is smoldering, instead of when the neighbors see the flames coming out the roof...). Add in some motion detectors, glass break sensors, whatever you want. You can get a module that allows you to call the house and arm/disarm, check status, speak the temperature in the house, adjust the thermostat, control X-10 modules, anything you want. If you do it yourself, you should be able to do everything I listed here for around $1000. You can get a panel that supports paging (if by some chance you still have a pager), buy a dialer to have it call you, or best yet, pay $10 - $20/month to have it professionally monitored. If something trips, they will call the phone numbers on your list until they find someone to alert.
Telaid had a product called "Tattletail" which dialid out like a modem to a Central Office which would then dispatch proper service. It would monitor Temp, Humidity, Water, and power outage with its back-up battery. Or instead, I think you could have it dial any number, like a cell phone. Then you can dial back into the Tattletale to find out what type of alarm went off. Otherwise the monitor Central Station software is more $$$..... If you are really serious about it, this solution is used in many Back Rooms to monitor Telecomm Eqpt. http://www.telaid.com/salesorproductinfo.shtml Tell them bubba sent you.
Check out liquidbreaker.com For ~$1000, it looks like an electrical breaker box only for water lines. It can email you if there's any problems and you can shutoff water over the Internet.
The most likely reason for your heat to fail and cause plumbing problems would be a power outage. If a storm comes through and takes out the power, all your technology is probably for naught. Most broadband systems can't ride out the kinds of outages the Northeast gets from a good ice storm.
Based on my family's experience with a vacation home in New Hampshire, I recommend:
No computerized McGuffin will be able to handle the range of scenarios that a good neighbor can...
Motorola makes a product that will monitor your house(video and audio) and you can monitor via the web. One of the periphals is a water sensor that can be installed to alert you when there is an excessive flow of water
You can get a device that will monitor environmental conditions, as well as contact-closures (such as water sensors, door sensors, smoke alarms, etc. These units can generally send SNMP traps, email messages, or pages over the phone. You can check out www.omnitronix.com as they are a supplier of these devices. You can even wire it up as a security system that you monitor yourself.
Am I the only person here who is absolutely opposed to people owning second homes?
That's property someone devoted to the region could live in. I live in New England, Vermont specifically, and my area is filled with houses empty for 8 months out of the year. It's DISGUSTING. People love the area from May to August, but leave the second the temperature drops. Quit driving up my god damned property taxes, they're high enough as it is.
Does one person really need to own two homes, when he can only reside in one at a time? There are so many people struggling to find a home at all.
Based on what I've done, I'd recommend:
1) Get some *reliable* IP cameras and install them so they can view windows, external doors, etc. so you can see whether someone has broken in. In my experience, webcams lock-up after a couple of days unattended, causing me to worry about whether they've been stolen.
2) Get some external security lights with motion sensors and wireless transmitters, and some internal wireless motion sensors. Connect the wireless receiver to the serial port of a PC, and write some code so that it emails you when something suspicious happens.
3) Buy some DS1621 temperature sensors and a soldering iron, and have fun building a chain of cheap temperature sensors that you can install in various parts of your house. See pcTHERM and LundyCam.
4) Make sure all of the above kit, and your PC and broadband gear are *really* reliable. Expect to spend some time ironing out the bugs. Keep things simple, so that there are less points of failure. Don't install unnecessary stuff anywhere in your monitoring system. Avoid the latest shiny consumer-grade webcams, ADSL routers, etc. This stuff looks good in the shop, but often seems to be designed around the assumption that it will be bounced daily.
I said eom!
Why not get a caretaker who just wants to outline a new writing project and prefers isolation to look after the place?
I am sure we can do better than drain the water system, especially since he has broadband.
:)
how about a PC house sitter, for one thing there is zoneminder http://www.zoneminder.com/ which could be used to set up camera's in and around his home you can configure it to notice changes and control a number of camera's placed strategically around his home port forward to his router and he can check his house anywhere he has net access even generate alarms and notify him when something has changed.
Of course it runs on linux so should be able to remain up for as long as he needs it.
come on folks we must be able to come up with some more geeky ways of looking after a house remotely
this is slashdot we can do better than just the obvious from handy andy
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
If the likelihood of disastrous events includes an absence of power you'll have to start with assuming you won't have power when the brown stuff hits the fan (which wouldn't be turning then, but let's leave the metaphors alone for now :-)
For that situation I refer you to my earlier post (you guys call it a cell phone instead of a mobile phone), but I just realised I don't know if that phone add-on is powered from the phone itself. If not, you still have a problem, and it assumes the local cell is still live if your house power dies.
Your item 1/2 can be signalled mechanically. Floating switches, thermostats, easy stuff. However, a crystal ball is hard to wire up for item 3, and you best bet is a human eye.
Which is why getting inhabitants is a better idea than laving it empty - your risk is than equal to the normal issue of being at work during the day..
Insert
I'm a big Kubrick fan, and read most Stephen king books.
The book and the movie are both really good, for totally different reasons. A *lot* of background stuff are missing in the movie, but the atmosphere, filming and actors are so top noch that it simply stands on its own.
IIRC (been a while...) the particular scene you speak about is a "straight port" from the book though. The whole scene is described in exactly the same way, in fact it feels like King is filming the scene and you only get to see what goes through the lens. No Nicholson, but believe me the emotional pressure that adds up as you turn the pages without understanding why exactly the pressure is building up is a good change.
I tend to agree with the "keep it occupied" line of thought, but for only part of the year, if you are not in a ski town, I don't know. If for year-round, then get a management agency that at least can answer a phone and collect rent for you for less than $100/mo.
Include pest control along with landscape maintenance as an ongoing attention required for the property.
Just to reemphasize what the previous poster said: the best approach is to get a housesitter/tenant. Otherwise it might literally not be there when you get back. In our case, not only was our house robbed once but it was then burned to the ground one winter by an arsonist. Trust me, we will never leave another house unoccupied over the winter.
If you can't find a paying tenant, there are always people who are looking for a place to housesit for a winter. Definitely do reference checks on anyone you get to housesit but I'd bet you can find someone who would be really grateful for the chance to housesit.
If you can't find a tenant, move all your possessions (all that you don't want to lose) to a storage unit. And make sure you have sufficient insurance for trouble that occurs while you're not there (pipes bursting, roof leaks, etc.)
like something from networkedrobotics.com or something.
We ./ers just tell our parents so they can check the basement periodically.
less is more
You've brought up another point that I forgot: Insurance. Be sure that your homeowner's insurance and umbrella policy and whatever else cover your house while unoccupied. Ask your agent about it; you may find that you need to buy special (read: expensive) insurance if you want it to be covered while it's unoccupied.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I would suggest using something like a single board computer (or embedded ethernet module, ...) with some analog & digital I/O connected to several sensors. On the temperature side, you can use something like the TMP36FSZ ($1.40 each from digikey) to monitor temperature. They will work down to -55 degrees C, so you can actually wrap / glue / ... to some of the pipes you would expect to freeze to monitor those directly. As far as monitoring for water leaks, you can use one of the digital i/o ports on the card, and just connect two wires to it and strip the ends. Leave the stripped ends sitting on the floor, and if water gets to the leads, it will short them out (thus setting off the digital input) and you know there is water there. If you want to get fancy, you can even script things like turning on and off the water with a solenoid valve, turn on and off the heater for short times, ... Your imagination is the limiting factor.
A cheap module that is also really easy to program is the rabbitcore modules. They already come with the full TCP/IP stack, web servers, SMTP, etc. If you really want to get fancy, you can use SNMP and have something like Nagios monitor the sensors, and alert on a specific problem. I actually have several of these set up in my server rooms to monitor temp / humidity / air flow using SNMP and Nagios and they work great. I have pictures of the rabbitcores, temp sensors, humidity sensors, etc. If you want to discuss further contact me.
Good luck on the new job.
Sentry guns + surveillance cameras, with enough electricity to power both...besides the initial overhead, shouldn't cost you more than 20 bucks a month, I'd think.
Well, there's no Federal regulation concerning the disposal, and most states don't want you to send it down drains after it's been USED in engines - from the metal contaminants picked up from the car. Since it is biodegradeable, we figured it was ok to do.
..........FULL STOP.