Turning your heat off at home while in Florida

in ohio we turn stat to 50deg and drain pipes ,you just never know about the weather. and have a friend check every week.

midnightsadie wrote:
in ohio we turn stat to 50deg and drain pipes ,you just never know about the weather. and have a friend check every week.

In Seattle, X2.

Ask a neighbor that leaves during Winter. They will leave the heater on.

Sent you a PM

not off, down. we haven't drained water as we have a whole-house genny in case of a power failure.

We turn the heat down to 55℉ in our upstate NY cottage and turn off the water heaters and pump plus depressurize, not drain, the water system. We monitor the cottage temperature with an Acu-Rite system that alerts us by text message if the temp drops below our alert settings so we can notify family to check on it.

I'm about 300 miles west of your 10-20.
We just turn the furnace thermostat down, and don't touch the water.
For thermal backup, I've got 2 X 30K BTU gas fireplaces, one up, one down, standing pilot, thermostatically controlled, set to fire up at just slightly lower than the furnace thermostat setting. If the power were to go out, the 2 fireplaces can heat the entire house, and keep the pipes warm. We hardly use our furnace in the winter at all any more, it's become the backup. We let the fireplaces handle the heating, and just keep it for summer cooling.
I can check the temperature via remote security camera access, if necessary.

I just installed a "Ring Spotlight Camera" over our garage door to compliment the "Ring Doorbell". I may add another Spotlight Camera for the backdoor/yard before we leave this winter. The Ring allows me to use my smartphone to see when anyone approaches our house and anytime I want to see what it's like back home.

I use an Ecobee thermostat on our heatpump to monitor the temperature inside the house. It alerts me when temperatures exceed my settings and when the auxiliary heat runs more than an hour in any 24 hour period. I can adjust the thermostat from my smartphone.

I don't drain the pipes but I do shut off the water as it enters the house and flush a toilet to relieve the pressure. I turn off the water heater and unplug as many power supplies as possible. Several lights are controlled by smart switches according my schedule to give the house a lived in look.

Cancelling the trash pickup saves us a bunch too. I submit a "Vacation Watch" to the local police and they check the doors on an irregular basis to make sure the place stays secured.

I contract (POA) with a lettercarrier out of our post office to collect my mail in my absence and forward it to me at the addresses I supply along our route. This has worked better than any method we've ever used including relying on relatives.

These measures allow me to enjoy our trips without worrying about the house or relying on others to stop by and check things (which never worked anyway).

I set the thermostat at 10C and shut off the water. We have a smart thermostat and s service that I can log onto and look at the temps minute-by minute, it also is set to send me and our house checker an email if the temp goes below set point, it also warns loss of connection (for example power failure if power is off for longer than the battery backup lasts).
I don't want to go through the hassle of winterizing the water system if I shut off the furnace, don't like pink showers when we return!

We winterize the plumbing (in case of power outage) and then set the thermostat to 50. No problems

I also added some Amazon Cloud cams, which allowed me to see that a person was shining a flashlight around our living room at 3:15 AM one night... they must have noticed the stickers near the doors that say I have surveilance, because nothing ever happened