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

[8ntw8tn]

We set our thermostat on manual as low as it will go (54*), turn the water heater off, and shut the water off to the house. We have an automatic dialer that will call out if the temperature drops below 45* or if the electrical power is interrupted. We have it set to call my cell phone first, but it will automatically roll over to a friend's phone if I don't answer. He's the one who looks in on our house a few times a week while we're gone. It's worked well, so far.

[almcc]

We set ours at 10C, our thstat is web enabled so it can E-mail us and our house sitter if it's below setpoint. Normally we shut off the water and water heater completely, this winter our daughter will spend a weekend or two at our house so I will set the water heater on vacation mode and shut off the water. She will turn on the water and w/h and return them to the settings we left them at when she leaves.

It take a few hours to go from 10 to zero C so the house sitter has reaction time to call the HVAC guy before a hard freeze happens

[Bumpyroad]

50-55 sounds about right to me. If you go really low, just above freezing for example, if the electricity goes out for a couple of hours you could have a big problem.
bumpy

[2oldman]

TucsonJim wrote:
don't forget to turn off the water to your washing machine.

Turn off the water supply to the entire house. Water heaters can rust out and leak too.

[TucsonJim]

Just need to set it high enough that pipes don't freeze in the walls. Also, don't forget to turn off the water to your washing machine. I have a friend who leaned the hard way. They had a neighbor call and ask why water was coming out the front door. It was a ruptured washing machine hose. The clean up and repairs were in excess of $40k.

[2oldman]

JGCiurysek wrote:
with a programmable thermostat

Those thermos can be quite confusing when they default to some sort of daily routine. I make sure mine's in manual mode and set the temp to 55.

[Jack_Diane_Free]

10C should do it. That is where we leave ours.