How will shutting off water and draining or putting antifreeze in pipes prevent the pipes coming into the house from freezing? (the pipes going across your yard from the city water main to your house)
I have a couple of We mo outlets plugs that let me turn on and off lamps via wifi. I see at Best Buy they now have light switches.
I am going to look into a nest camera to use with my nest thermo, but am stuck on where to put it…want best view of bad guys without them seeing the camera so I want one without lights.
I think you can turn off the water at the meter and drain everything on your side of the meter, then isnt it the city’s responsibility to maintain their side of the meter?
In many municipalities (including San Diego… where we obviously don’t have this problem), the ownership of maintenance has changed for sewer and water lines. Homeowner is responsible for pipes all the way out to where they connect to the main sewer line, which is usually located underneath the middle of the street or along the side of the street. So, a lot can happen between the meter attached to the house and the street.
We have never been away longer than 5 weeks at a time. We don’t do all that much. We do let our neighbors know. One neighbor picks up the mail and our paper (stops his and reads ours at our request–he ends up with several extra months tacked onto his subscription from our trips).
We don’t have the cold temps you are discussing. We have never had issues thus far. We haven’t ever turned off the washer water–will discuss with H.
You pay a monthly fee to Verizon, and you can set it to notify you via various methods (text, email, etc) if your power goes off, the temperature gets out of a certain range, or humidity gets out of a range you set. You don’t need Internet service for it to work. It worked great.
I also had a handyman I trusted stop by once a week and walk through. I left the water on inside, and he flushed toilets & ran the taps, and walked through & around. I just paid him at the start of each month for the upcoming month til the house sold. I did not turn of the fridge, but did leave the dishwasher door adjar and top up on the washing machine
My real estate agent bought the monitor from me when I was done. I would get another if I were a snowbird, though.
@kajon:
The water pipes that feed your house are buried relatively deep and the temperature at that depth is below the frost line (ie the temperature is above freezing), so that isn’t a problem. The pipes in your home, however, as exposed, if the temp in the house goes below 32 degrees they will freeze, pure and simple (obviously, depends on how cold the house gets, pipes in crawl spaces or in ceilings that are not insulated or exterior walls will often freeze first)>
If a waterpipe bursts outside that generally is the province of the water company, least I believe it is in my town, but they rarely ever burst for the reason I cited above, the rule here is from the water meter out is there responsibility, when the main cutoff valve leaked they replaced it, not me.