Shut off water at home???

Define "a few days". Better check your insurance policy. Some insurers have specific "away" terms and your insurance can be void if the house is left unattended after a certain number of days. In some cases, it's only a few days. I think with some policies, having a neighbor or family member inspect your house every few days satisfies the requirements.

Good plan to turn the water off, esp. if on a well. Someone could have inadvertently left a faucet on. Happened to us last summer when someone did not properly shut off an outside faucet. Eventually drained our well and had to get a tanker truck in to refill it.

Washing machines are a high risk failure as well as water supply tubing to fridges. Installers sometimes forget or do not known how to properly install connect the sleeve and insert on the 1/4" line at the shutoff or fridge and the line can eventually suddenly let go. If nobody is home, that will cause extensive damage.

If your washing machine has rubber hoses, replace with S/S braided ones. Even then, they should be replaced about every 5 years.

Yes.

Never have shut off the water in over 40 years of traveling, usually 3-4 weeks at a time, and have never had an issue. The fact of the matter is I simply never think about it.

Dutch - my forced hot water system doesn't have any bleeders in the high spots. The older systems do. Filling this system just requires that you supply water and attach a drain hose to the spigot between the circ pump and the rest of the piping. Water is forced up through the piping and when it stops gurgling at the drain, you're done.

I've had to burp the system regularly since I had the circ pumps replaced. It's not that big a deal.

I had considered shutting off the furnace and draining the heating system, but I don't think I'd be able to get 100% of the water out.

jplante4 wrote:
... diaphragm in the expansion tank on the heating system ruptured. ... pressure control from the hot water heating pipes and resulted in the water in the pipes expanding and contracting...

So, we're headed south for the winter...

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I do have a comment here.

jplante4:
I've had to live with the hot water system in my mother's house for 60 years now! I absolutely hate that system. But... here's something you need to consider.... that makes these systems horrid! You CANNOT turn the main source of water off when you have a hot water pipe system.

The pipes have small air valves that allows water and vapor to escape the system. Although small, it's designed to do that. When the pressure in the pipes reaches a designated "low", a valve turns on and allows water (from your water source) to fill the heating pipes again. If the water is not supplied, you will have air gaps in the heating pipes, and once there is an air-gap, the water will not circulate throughout the house.

You MUST keep the water turned on so there is a constant feed of new water into the heating pipes when this evaporation and then contraction occurs.

Yes, the bladder is designed to help regulate the pressure, but there must still be a constant availability for water to enter the system. Turn the water off at the main source and you'll have a furnace guy out bleeding all those furnace water lines... which isn't a fun job to do either!

Just an FYI and something to think about.

We also are on a well.
No, I don't shut anything off when we will be gone for a few days or even a couple of weeks.
My parents didn't either.
In my 70+ years of life, I have never had an incident or occurrence, nor have I ever known anyone who did.

Anmacc2 wrote:
I live in South Florida so cold temps are never an issue, but I have never shut the water main. I also don't shut my washing machine valve or turn off my hot water heater. I don't unplug my appliances or electronics. I don't even shut off my ice maker. I don't do any of those things when I go to work or go out for the day and that's five or six days a week, every week. Now when I go away for a month.... Who am I kidding I don't do it then either. Life's too short to worry about anything and everything that might possibly go wrong. I have a friend who has made up check lists of things to do to prep his RV and close up his house when he leaves and things to do when he gets home... Not sure why. He never actually goes anywhere because it's too much work and too time consuming to do everything on his check lists.... Just my way. I'm sure others will disagree.

x2 ... I find the more planning I do for an outing, the more work it creates.

when I went to Alaska for 1.5 months, I turned off the electric hot water at home, that's about it.

I had a basement leak, but it wasn't from a broken pipe and the cause may be a surprise to some. The diaphragm in the expansion tank on the heating system ruptured. This removed the normal pressure control from the hot water heating pipes and resulted in the water in the pipes expanding and contracting. The expansion popped the P/T valve which drains onto the basement floor. This happened while I was home, in the morning. I heard a strange gurgling from the heating pipes and went down to investigate. The water could not have been running for more than 20 minutes, and I had an inch of standing water in the basement.

So, yes, I shut off the water when I go camping.

So, we're headed south for the winter this year for the first time, and I'm thinking about this happening while I'm away. I'll be shutting off the water and leaving the heat set to 50°. If the P/T valve on the boiler opens and relieves the pressure, there will be no makeup water available. Hopefully the boiler will shut down on under pressure or over temp, but now I have no heat. I think I'll drain the water system as well.

I expect I'll have the local handyman pop in weekly to check things out just so I'm not obsessing about this stuff while I'm sitting on a beach in January.

Other options would be to shut off the heat and just let the chips fall on the pipes freezing. I'd have to fill the heating system with anit-freeze if I do this.

Another option is a monitoring system of some sort, either with a service or a text message to my cell, but this would require that I leave the WiFi and cable connected, and I normally unplug those while we're away.

Guess I'll head over to the snowbirds forum and see what everyone else does.

Well, considering my son returned home with his son and are now living with us, it doesn't make much sense to turn the water off when we go camping as he is home when we are gone.

But, if the house is going to be empty for more than a couple days, yes I flip the breaker on the water pump (we are on a well). I also flip the breakers on our 2 water heaters in the house. I don't worry about relieving the pressure from the water lines, I just let it go.

When returning, there is still pressure (which tells me there is no water leading in the toilets), and even after being gone 5 days, there is still warmth in the water heaters.

It only takes 5 seconds to reach in the breaker box (which is located in our master bed room, behind a hinged door) and flip the 3 breakers. If there is ever a break in the water lines, the most that will leak will be the water under pressure and nothing more.

Leaky toilets will cost you a fortune in water (well or city), and they can be really fickle sometimes. They can be leaking and you're not even aware of it. So... yes ... water off when we are gone.

I don't shut off the well pump for a few-days' absence; but I probably should. Last winter, we let the sink drip while we were in FL - because my pressure tank is in an exterior "dog house" and the occasionally-refilled tank provides the warmth to prevent freezing. I think this year, we'll just have the house winterized.