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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!
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
When we close up our cabin, that's what we do (turn it off at the house and drain the water -- leave those taps open, too). We also leave the heater on at 55 degrees, but that's more because my dad is crazy and hates the environment. There's no reason to.
An alarm and a web cam won't hurt, and neither will some good timers for the lights. Still, don't leave anything valuable there, because everyone will know you're gone. At our cabin, there's very little worth stealing. We also have a guy check it out weekly (just a walk around).
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I left the autonomous robotic house minders and the holographic repair people in my other pants.
Really? I didn't know Building Automation Systems would fit into anyone's pants. These systems are all quite capable of monitoring and controlling the temperature in the building, as well as notifying him of catastrophic failures (or warning signs of an impending one). They also all allow remote logins via web interfaces.
Personally, I recommend the Automated Logic one, as I've had experience with it and I know that it's a solid system. Not cheap, though. The hardware necessary (a custom PLC, essentially) will cost you at least $10k, and the software will be another $3-5k. Installation will cost $5-10k.
Make sure that the web cam can also see what is on the floor too. He could watch for puddles of water on the floor from a broken pipe or leaky roof. He could also see if rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Thousands of rat droppings on the carpeting and furniture would be a real mess. I have seen that happen in a car and in a truck. He might even see a rat or mouse on the web cam now and then. Perhaps he might even catch a glimpse of a burglar. The thermometer should have a large easy to read display.
Be sure to also remove food from the refrigerator before leaving. I have seen a refrigerator that failed while someone was gone and thousands of maggots ended up crawling up the sides of the refrigerator and died stuck to the walls, shelves, roof, drawers and crevices of the refrigerator. Two other people told me that have seen the same thing. It was unbelievably disgusting, so take the food out before leaving for a few months.
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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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"