how to leave home

[ceasare]

I'm sure this has been asked before but what do you do to the sticks and bricks when leaving for the winter? This is our first year of snow birding. We leave about 1/3. Going to Quartzite and Yuma and wherever. LOL. Happy Days!!!!

[ivbinconned]

We have “D Link cameras but on a recent trip away our cameras lost connection with the router and could not reconnect!
This happened once before and it took a reboot of this new expensive router to reconnect.
So I phoned a friend and he went to our country yard and switched off the main breaker for a minute, which rebooted the router and I was able to reconnect to cameras before he got off the yard. I snapped a picture of him.
I googled this issue and it is common.
Mysolutuion is this. I put a timer on the router and once a day every day it turns off for a short period of time.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

2edgesword wrote:
The only thing I'd add to RobWNY's post is put in a camera system that you can remotely access via the internet. They're not that expensive (Arlo set-up is about $500) so you can real-time view your home inside and out depending on where you set-up the cameras. Sensor in the system can also trigger recording if anyone approaches or enters your home.

I just put Amazon Cloud cams in our home, and have been very pleased with the setup. In my case, I can tell the cameras to ignore motion in certain zones (like where the dogs would walk by) - and I have one set just looking out a window so I can watch it snow 🙂

[mcewena]

John&Joey wrote:

mcewena wrote:

John&Joey wrote:
Take a look at Simpisafe. Battery backup, and uses the cell phone system not the internet (except for their camera for preserving video to the cloud.)

Hmm, need to buy another phone contract but that's not bad. Thanks!

No you do not!

It is part of their monthly contract service that you can easily start and stop whenever you want. They also have freeze, smoke, and motion sensors all tied to a hub that ties to the cell towers. All run off of batteries or power when on.

If you have their $15/month plan the call is made to them who will then call you. A safe word is given and then a course of action is taken. If no one answers then they use all the resources that would be needed if the event was true.

FYI, I do a combination of several things. My "home away" has been evolving over the past decade. SimpliSafe is just part of the overall design. I do the rest of what has been commented on also, but with 30 years of an IT and system designer twist to it to fit my needs.

Feel free to email them even if you're not a customer. They have excellent customer service. Make sure they can work in your area would be my only concern.

It's not an option their monitoring service isn't available in Canada, presumably they only have a deal with US cell providers.

[pawatt]

luckyd wrote:
As mentioned...CHECK WITH YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY.
Some allow an absence of 30 days as long as you can document
someone is checking every 72 hours. After 30 days you must have someone
living in the house.
Insurance will do everything NOT TO PAY so anyone that you name as a reference
will be checked, rechecked, and triple checked.
Canadians hate having to buy travel insurance to snowbird in the USA, but
look at the horror stories of those that did not buy any. Even the ones with insurance have the stories of insurance not wanting to pay.

Your house is worth looking after.

This is absolutely untrue in many areas, we live in a area where as many as 50% of the homes are seasonal, many owners are away for 6 to 9 months at a time and insurance is never been an issue. just make sure you have the right insurance for your circumstances

[luckyd]

As mentioned...CHECK WITH YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY.
Some allow an absence of 30 days as long as you can document
someone is checking every 72 hours. After 30 days you must have someone
living in the house.
Insurance will do everything NOT TO PAY so anyone that you name as a reference
will be checked, rechecked, and triple checked.
Canadians hate having to buy travel insurance to snowbird in the USA, but
look at the horror stories of those that did not buy any. Even the ones with insurance have the stories of insurance not wanting to pay.

Your house is worth looking after.

[John_Joey]

mcewena wrote:

John&Joey wrote:
Take a look at Simpisafe. Battery backup, and uses the cell phone system not the internet (except for their camera for preserving video to the cloud.)

Hmm, need to buy another phone contract but that's not bad. Thanks!

No you do not!

It is part of their monthly contract service that you can easily start and stop whenever you want. They also have freeze, smoke, and motion sensors all tied to a hub that ties to the cell towers. All run off of batteries or power when on.

If you have their $15/month plan the call is made to them who will then call you. A safe word is given and then a course of action is taken. If no one answers then they use all the resources that would be needed if the event was true.

FYI, I do a combination of several things. My "home away" has been evolving over the past decade. SimpliSafe is just part of the overall design. I do the rest of what has been commented on also, but with 30 years of an IT and system designer twist to it to fit my needs.

Feel free to email them even if you're not a customer. They have excellent customer service. Make sure they can work in your area would be my only concern.

[mcewena]

John&Joey wrote:
Take a look at Simpisafe. Battery backup, and uses the cell phone system not the internet (except for their camera for preserving video to the cloud.)

Hmm, need to buy another phone contract but that's not bad. Thanks!

[John_Joey]

mcewena wrote:
I thought of a home monitor...if there's a power outage the monitor and it's internet connection are gone.

Take a look at Simpisafe. Battery backup, and uses the cell phone system not the internet (except for their camera for preserving video to the cloud.)

[almcc]

mcewena wrote:

almcc wrote:
With the system we have I can determine if I have a power failure back home. First indication is I (and my house checker) get an email that says the thermostat is missing. When I get this message I then look at the minute by minute raw data provided by the service and if the furnace is calling for heat but the place isn't warming up then there is a power failure, it helps that I have a battery back UPS that gives an hour of internet connectivity before the UPS dies.

In terms of a power failure, the possibility of damage to your home depends on the weather conditions (outside temp) at your location. Last year we had a 30 hour power outage (transformer blew on a pole) with the outside temps below freezing, the inside temp never got down close to freezing.

Thanks. I was sort of assuming if there was a power failure then my internet provider would also be impacted even if I had a UPS for my modem. Best I've come up with is an app that takes a picture of the thermostat every hour and stores it to dropbox. The absence of a picture means no power but I have to assume continued absence means continued no power as opposed to reboot problem.

Probably worrying over nothing as we lost power for 2 weeks back in the '98 ice storm and there were no issues. (of course my basement didn't have a sump hole then).

Your internet connectivity with a power failure may depend on how you are connected. I can't comment on cable but I have a DSL connection via a phone line (they keep going during a failure) and my provider is a distance away so unless there is a very widespread failure I still have internet for as long as my UPS keeps going.

[mcewena]

almcc wrote:
With the system we have I can determine if I have a power failure back home. First indication is I (and my house checker) get an email that says the thermostat is missing. When I get this message I then look at the minute by minute raw data provided by the service and if the furnace is calling for heat but the place isn't warming up then there is a power failure, it helps that I have a battery back UPS that gives an hour of internet connectivity before the UPS dies.

In terms of a power failure, the possibility of damage to your home depends on the weather conditions (outside temp) at your location. Last year we had a 30 hour power outage (transformer blew on a pole) with the outside temps below freezing, the inside temp never got down close to freezing.

Thanks. I was sort of assuming if there was a power failure then my internet provider would also be impacted even if I had a UPS for my modem. Best I've come up with is an app that takes a picture of the thermostat every hour and stores it to dropbox. The absence of a picture means no power but I have to assume continued absence means continued no power as opposed to reboot problem.

Probably worrying over nothing as we lost power for 2 weeks back in the '98 ice storm and there were no issues. (of course my basement didn't have a sump hole then).

[almcc]

mcewena wrote:
I thought of a home monitor but I'm actually more concerned about power outages than anything else (I already shut off the water) and if there's a power outage the monitor and it's internet connection are gone.

With the system we have I can determine if I have a power failure back home. First indication is I (and my house checker) get an email that says the thermostat is missing. When I get this message I then look at the minute by minute raw data provided by the service and if the furnace is calling for heat but the place isn't warming up then there is a power failure, it helps that I have a battery back UPS that gives an hour of internet connectivity before the UPS dies.

In terms of a power failure, the possibility of damage to your home depends on the weather conditions (outside temp) at your location. Last year we had a 30 hour power outage (transformer blew on a pole) with the outside temps below freezing, the inside temp never got down close to freezing.

[mcewena]

I thought of a home monitor but I'm actually more concerned about power outages than anything else (I already shut off the water) and if there's a power outage the monitor and it's internet connection are gone.

[CarnationSailor]

I have an alarm, but no cameras. My neighbor takes care of the house, and I don't want know when he rents it on Air BnB! 🙂

[pyoung47]

I have a video system which allows me to view the cameras and playback remotely. I also acquired a weather station that allows me to access the outside temperature, humidity, and wind speed -- and the inside temperature and humidity remotely via the internet. I can't remember what I paid for the weather station -- but it was less than $100. It also ties in to NOAA to give a quick weather forecast on the screen.

I always, of course turn off the water, either in the house or at the meter, turn off the water heater, turn off the water softener etc.