leaving the stick and brick for the summer

[ceasare]

We recently moved to Las Vegas and are planning to leave for 2-3 months for the summer. What temperature is advised to leave the AC on? We dont want the house to melt LOL before we get back.

[obgraham]

As a snowbirder, we leave our place in Arizona (Mesa) for 6 months.
This is a big topic. Half of us turn everything off. They seem to manage.
I'm in the other half: a/c to 90. Leave reefer on, with all bath/kitchen stuff possible in it.
Humidity is a non-issue there. But yes, turn off the water main valve.
In all the places I've had, the irrigation is upstream of the house valve. On purpose.

[opnspaces]

ceasare wrote:
Thanks for all the info. The only thing I don't know is if I can shut off the water. Have to find out where the drip irrigation system is hooked up. Can't shut that off.

I would shut off the water now and open a faucet in the sink to drain the pressure out of the pipe. Then turn off the faucet and go turn on the drip irrigation. It the drip is still going strong after a few minutes it's probably not controlled by that valve.

But I'll bet that your drip is in fact downstream (after) the valve and therefore will be a problem that you need to come up with a plan for.

[Scottiemom]

Another tip. If you have an ice maker, make sure you have a shut off when it's installed. We expect those little plastic tubes to last forever and . . . trust me. . . they DON'T! And they can leak a LOT of water in a short time.

Dale

[ceasare]

Thanks for all the info. The only thing I don't know is if I can shut off the water. Have to find out where the drip irrigation system is hooked up. Can't shut that off.

[cptqueeg]

An often overlooked weak point is the condensate pan under the air handlers. They can get plugged and trip the float switch so air handler won't come on or overflow into the living space.

[Bumpyroad]

having had that "leak in the wall" It gets uncomfortable to try to get to sleep when there are 6 huge de-humidifiers in your bedroom.
bumpy

[valhalla360]

Grit dog wrote:
While ferndale has an interesting take on the care of his personal possessions, I've seen or known of a couple too many of the typical/cheap toilet/sink valves failing to not at least do something as simple as spending 2 minutes to turn off the water if leaving it unattended for a long time.
But generally seen it due to freezing.

To ferndale's point, what is a long time? You could have enough damage if a line broke 1 minute after you went to sleep at night, until you woke up in the morning.
A simple vacation or weekend away, same scenario could as well.

So again to his point, does it really matter? Damage will be similar, but how long it goes un checked is more the issue, IMO.

All good points though on winterizing or summerizing a home.

While you could have damage from 1min of leaking or even a few hours... but the sooner you clean it up and dry it out the less likely there will be collateral damage. If you have an overnight leak and immediately in the morning, stop the leak and dry it out, good chance you never develop a mold problem. Let a leaking pipe spray water into the wall for weeks and you may need to do mold abatement and you may have rotted wood in the floors and walls...Make it 3 months and you will almost certainly have a much bigger problem...it escalates with time.

Back when we had a house, I would typically turn off the water and adjust the thermostat if we were leaving for a weekend. A week or more and I would kill most of the breakers. Just took a couple minutes, so no great burden.

[Grit_dog]

While ferndale has an interesting take on the care of his personal possessions, I've seen or known of a couple too many of the typical/cheap toilet/sink valves failing to not at least do something as simple as spending 2 minutes to turn off the water if leaving it unattended for a long time.
But generally seen it due to freezing.

To ferndale's point, what is a long time? You could have enough damage if a line broke 1 minute after you went to sleep at night, until you woke up in the morning.
A simple vacation or weekend away, same scenario could as well.

So again to his point, does it really matter? Damage will be similar, but how long it goes un checked is more the issue, IMO.

All good points though on winterizing or summerizing a home.

[valhalla360]

Humidity is probably not a big concern in Vegas, so high 80's/low 90's is going to be fine. If anything, you might want to run a humidifier so it does

As others mentioned some oil in the toilet and P-traps so sewer gas can't come back in if they dry out.

Turn off all the breakers except to the air/con & sump pump (assuming you have one).

Turn off the main water valve/pump.

Clean out the fridge, remove food and make sure to clean up any food related spills...otherwise you are likely to draw critters.

[mgirardo]

Around here, most Climate Controlled storage facilities keep the A/C set in the high 80s, just enough to run it to pull out the humidity.

When we camped seasonally, we had the A/C upstairs set to 85 degrees, downstairs was off. We would turn off the water, the refrigerator (and left open), and the hot water heater. We had a couple lights on smart switches/outlets inside and out and we left the internet on so we could monitor cameras and the smart switches/outlets.

-Michael

[Janss]

ferndaleflyer....Interesting take on things. I wouldn't want my house to flood even if the insurance pays for it. And if I left my house a/c at 73 for 3 months that I'm gone, I'd have a much higher electric bill than if I had stayed at home.

Grit dog....That certainly would be a great practical joke! Hope we never forget the plastic wrap when we arrive back home and run into the house to go to the bathroom!

[ferndaleflyer]

Lots of facts here. I have 3 homes plus the DP. In the houses I just set them on 73 and never change them. Never had a commode go dry and if it floods that's what insurance is for including the water bill. Once the water in the basement was up to the floor because the sump pump failed. Insurance paid for it all.

[Janss]

I turn my water off too. Had an incident years back. I also turn off the circuit breaker of my electric water heater. No need to reheat the same water over and over again while I'm gone.

[Grit_dog]

Janss wrote:
86 also. Plus I lift up the toilet seat, put plastic wrap sealed very well over the toilet bowl, and put the seat and lid down. That water in the bowl will evaporate and could dry out your toilet if this is not done...which could cause problems. Don't ask me how I know.

Wow, the perfect practical joke turned into a useful home storage tool!