Leaving the heat on??

[The_Tigers_Crew]

Hi;
We are leaving for the Southwest United States for 6 months from Oct. to April & we have a question; we plan on turning our hot water down to the vacation mode (someone will be here at least once a month) but I don't know what temperature to set our furnace. It's a new furnace with a programmable thermostat & we live in the Windsor, Ontario, Canada region. What suggestions do you have for us? Thanks & have a great day.

Regards
Gerry Ciurysek

[Canuck_Travelle]

Been doing this for 10 years here in NB....pretty cold Province.
We have a basement & drain all water to set tub in basement & out to septic tank. Plumbers Anti-freeze in all sinks, toilets, etc.
Put in a US (or other) Thermostat that allows settings lower that 10C (50F.)

We set our Thermostat to 42F, we have a camera system using the Internet with a camera in the house showing the Thermostat & a BIG Thermometer above it, look at it when on the internet in Florida. Never had a problem with moisture or any deterioration in the house.
We have electric heat & wood furnace, the wood furnace is used only when we are home, on the wood furnace thermostat we put a small red bulb that comes on when the wood furnace is calling for heat by opening the wood draft. When the electric furnace kicks in the light goes out & one can see that the electric furnace is functioning.

Retired neighbour comes once a week, lives across the road monitors the house from his window. I am lucky to have him as he looks after other things while we are gone.

Hope this helps.

[Canadian_Rainbi]

The first thing to do is to check your home owners insurance policy. Many if not all mention leaving the house empty. Most if not all require that they be informed if the house is going to be vacant for more than X number of days. Ours is 30 days.

It's worth a call or e-mail to them to see what their requirements are.

THEN do what they require plus anything else you feel you should do.

[Chop]

Thanks for all of your helpful comments and insights folks. This has helped inform my decision.

Am going to do the full shutdown.

[az99]

I always turned our vacation place in northern NY back to 50º. Drain the pipes and fill the drains with RV anti freeze.
I got a device that we put in the basement that phone calls you or someone else if the temp drops below that. As a backup to that I also have a device that turns on a light if the temp is too low. I put a red bulb in that by a window.

[John_Joey]

Chop wrote:
...snip...I have read that some folks leave the heat on out of concern with hardwood flooring buckling, tile cracking, drywall/paint cracks. I have read the concerns, but haven't read any actual accounts of this happening (with the exception of the campingman's post above, but that was related to a leaking pipe) - accounts of could be out there, I just haven't come across them yet. If there is another compelling reason to leave heat on, I am all ears.

When you're in really cold country (for plants that would be a zone 3 or 4 and colder) you need to worry about basement walls. If you have a deep freeze cement block walls can buckle inwards (long horizontal cracks along the cement lines.) I've seen a few where the wall has even pushed in by an inch or so. Very expensive to fix. New Hampshire should not have that issue.

[JW_of_Opechee_S]

Don't take any chances, unless someone is going to check on the house and start a generator when the power goes out. Drain the system and put in antifreeze, the cost will be offset by the savings and if you have forced hot water heat the antifreeze will stay in the system and winterizing the next season will cost even less. I have friends who had pipes burst two years in a row because the turned the heat down and then when the power went out for more than two days they had a lot of damage. Insurance may cover the cost but not the aggravation.

[thecampingman]

Chop;
If you have a house that already has moisture problems like a damp basement or crawl space you could have problems with freezing temperatures because of the moisture already in the structure.
You can spot those houses when you walk in the door after they've been closed up for a while. When you're greeted by the moldy musty smell. They're not healthy places to live. Those people would be better off addressing the moisture problem than trying to mask the problem by leaving the heat on.
Freezing exposes problems you already have. It doesn't create the problem.

My hardwood supplier has no heat in his "showroom" of precious hardwoods. To prevent "checking" from drying out too much too quickly. If wood isn't stored in a temperature controlled environment why would it be different in your house?

Drywall, tile, and tongue & groove flooring all go thru the freeze/thaw cycle perfectly well...Unless you have a bad threshold on the front door, moisture seeping into the substrate in the bathroom, or bad roof gutters allowing water to saturate the inside of a wall.
Wouldn't you want to know about those problems if you had them? Test them with the freeze test. Don't wait for them to rot away.

I can think of no compelling reason to waste resources by leaving heat on in an unoccupied house.
The savings we experience by shutting down the house is what makes it possible for us to snowbird.

[Chop]

Hi All...first post 🙂

This is my wife and I's first winter heading south. Am trying to decide between leaving heat on at a moderate temp (50 deg F) or doing a complete shutdown.

We consider a complete shutdown of heating system for the following reasons:
1) cost saving on heating oil
2) have had frozen pipes after furnace went down while being going 1 week in Feb ( no damage thankfully)
3) cost savings on having a long driveway plowed to give access to fuel trucks
4) cost savings on having someone come and take care of snow on the roof (ice dams that occur around skylights)

I have read that some folks leave the heat on out of concern with hardwood flooring buckling, tile cracking, drywall/paint cracks. I have read the concerns, but haven't read any actual accounts of this happening (with the exception of the campingman's post above, but that was related to a leaking pipe) - accounts of could be out there, I just haven't come across them yet. If there is another compelling reason to leave heat on, I am all ears.

Being a professional woodworker, I am keen to the changes that happen with moisture changes, but temperature changes....I have not experienced anything adverse...that is to say that I haven't really had the chance to experience anything adverse.

Here in New Hampshire, we are hitting pretty dry levels by November when we plan on leaving and will be back in late March, before humidity kicks in....so humidity will be fairly stable. We are inland quite a bit (in the White Mtns in NH), so I don't believe that mold/mildew will be much of a problem.

We have hardwood flooring throughout much of our house, as well as some exposed beams, tongue and groove on some of the walls....some tile and of course, plenty of sheetrock.

Thanks in advance for advice and thoughts for this first time snowbird 🙂

[thecampingman]

I drain my lines and shut off the heat too. And I've made ALL of the mistakes.

#1 The first year I blew out the lines with 120 PSI air. It literally "blew out the lines!" It blew the joints apart!

#2 I bought 2 ice maker solenoids before finding out how to trick the ice maker into cycling. (You take out all the ice and wait for the ice maker to hiss with air.)

#3 You have to add the antifreeze into the holding tank of the toilet to get rid of that last inch of water in there.

#4 Outdoor "freeze proof" faucets need drained too.

#5 The compressor has a drain valve on the air tank to get the water out of there.

The only thing that kept me going after all those flubs was the belief "If there isn't any water nothing is going to freeze!"

One year the kitchen floor buckled. I tracked it back to a leaky drain under the kitchen sink with water seeping into the sub floor. I fixed the leak. When the house warmed up the buckling went down. So I guess it was a good thing. It kept my kitchen floor from rotting out.

[robatthelake]

We turn Our Heat Off ..Nada Zip! Water Heater is also Off, but only partially Drained! the rest of the House Water is drained back to the pressure Tank.

We draw Our Water from a Lake so are able to turnoff the supply and drain back to eliminate most of the water within the pipes.

We have Been doing this for the last dozen Years....No problem!

It is really just like Winterizing Your RV!

[JohnDoe]

Past years I have left my heat on< I have a oil burning Furnace and its getting older, last year I set in Florida wondering what happens if it shuts down, so this year I am shutting it down, water shut off at the curb, draining the system, blowing out my water lines and filling with R V antifreeze, , no fuel bill are water bill,

[Fizz]

We can't set ours lower than 10C. No problems yet.
Shut off the water supply.

[Ken_O]

D&E Johnson wrote:
We also set out thermostat to 10c. In addition, we empty the hot water heater, turn off the well pump and drain, and then blow out the water lines with an air compressor. Our lines would freeze here in Shelburne Ontario. We unplug all appliances, empty the fridge and freezer and leave the doors open. You never know when and how long the power could be off in a storm. We also have a neighbor check the house couple times a week.We have no, to the house mail delivery, but another neighbor collects our mail from the super boxes and sends me what I need once a month.

+1 on the possibility of loosing power!

Now I shut off all power to the house. Eight years in a row I had broken pipes when I got back, thinking if I left the heat on, it would all be OK. Power was lost every year long enough freeze and break them. (I know, I'm a slow learner...), now they get blown out, and RV anitfreeze pumped through them. I save a bunch on heating cost also.

I have a deep submersible pump (200 foot), and two pressure tanks that are burried below the frost line, so they are no problem. I just drain the hot water tank, and throw the breaker for the pump.

I plumbed in a pump for the antifreeze, just like thats in the RV.

[D_E_Johnson]

We also set out thermostat to 10c. In addition, we empty the hot water heater, turn off the well pump and drain, and then blow out the water lines with an air compressor. Our lines would freeze here in Shelburne Ontario. We unplug all appliances, empty the fridge and freezer and leave the doors open. You never know when and how long the power could be off in a storm. We also have a neighbor check the house couple times a week.We have no, to the house mail delivery, but another neighbor collects our mail from the super boxes and sends me what I need once a month.