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...is this still a thing? I remember my parents doing it, but I've never bothered but my in-laws mentioned it the other day which got me thinking.
Good point. We used to unplug everything every night as well. I don't think we would as we have a cat and someone comes to look after it but that and the gas wouldn't be bad things to switch off really
We turn the electric off also, and the heating goes to 7 degrees "holiday mode". I'd be nervous of turning the gas lever in case of a causing a leak, it'd go into my Fearful Jobs category!
Holiday time is the best time for a leak. If you come back to a disaster your bags are packed and the cat's away in care.
Seriously, why bother; probabilities and all that, apart from in winter when I would isolate and drain outside taps
I would check that the internal stop cock works from time-to-time, but not as you're about to go out of the door because it inevitably will weep from the gland.
I don't even pull the aerial from the back of the TV when there's a thunderstorm! 🙂
#livingontheedge
@Timba So much temptation from the plentiful material in that last line.
We have a place which is empty most of the time and fairly remote, I’ve never bothered turning off the water and never actually given it a thought. I’d probably be more worried about airlocks from drops in pressure by turning it on and off every couple of months (that may be an unfounded fear).
Indeed this year persons unknown turned the water off at the stopcock on the road and it caused great confusion as we thought there was a water stoppage (local stoppages are not unheard of our way as there are a lot of little group water schemes rather than a grid) and we had to check with neighbours and then tried blowing out any potential airlocks before thinking to find the stopcock and check that, at night, in the rain.
My parent’s big thing was locking internal doors when they went to bed at night / went out, I have no idea where this came from but over the last few years I started just removing keys from the house as it was so annoying and dangerous.
We don't, but as others have said, we did come back to leaks on two occasions - one was a tap left to drip, just enough for water to run back along the tap body, onto the bath, and over the side, through the floor and ceiling. Other was a pin hole in a pipe that left the down stairs loo swimming in water.
At the static caravan, we turn the water off in early season only due to frost risk.
We turn the electric off also, and the heating goes to 7 degrees “holiday mode”.
How are these two things even mutually possible? Leccy off means no heating system powered up to be in 'holiday mode'.
Nothing turned off or unplugged here - but heating goes into away mode automatically (because neither of our phones are in the building and the tado system takes care of that) and we leave a couple of lights with smart bulbs in turning themselves on and off as normal to create and frankly implausible illusion that we are still in. Easiest way to see what houses are away on holiday - wait until bin day.....
You can get AI powered automatic valves that detect unusual water flow patterns i.e. a leak and shut off your water supply (and notify you obviously!) Was going to get a free one installed as part of a trial from an insurance company that offers you lower premiums if you have certain smart-tech designed reduce your risk levels, but couldn't be bothered to fill out the paperwork in the end 😂 But a decent option for compulsive worriers, certainly!
valid point! 😂How are these two things even mutually possible? Leccy off means no heating system powered up to be in ‘holiday mode’.
I always do this, it's probably very unlikely anything will happen while you're away but you're not there to deal with if it does. Plus it takes about 10 seconds.
We do for longer winter breaks, and living in a detached house the fear is it could be a long time until it was noticed by a neighbour
..oh and the neighbour is a key holder as well.
Seriously, why bother; probabilities and all that,
It's not so much probability as consequence. It's not any more likely to happen when you're away but it's about what happens if a fault goes undetected becuase you're away. Growing up we came home once to the scene of absolute devastation - ceilings down, wooden flooring and carpets destroyed, destroyed electrics, freezer full of rotting food. All caused by a tiny impurity in a copper pipe feeding the toilet cistern that had taken to 20 years to dissolve. Only a tiny pinhole and on any other occasion we'd have spotted a damp patch on the ceiling and investigated. But left unchecked for two weeks it caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. Came home from hols and spent the next week taking most of our possessions to the tip.
The pipe was one of a dud batch that had been used all over the estate of around 800 houses 🙂
I would check that the internal stop cock works from time-to-time, but not as you’re about to go out of the door because it inevitably will weep from the gland.
Our's are all seized. Last time I tried this - when the new kitchen was being installed - I found the stop cock hiding behind the cooker. I tried it, and found my self with a face full of water. Cost me an emergency plummer.
We have a newer "quick" stop outside, so I use that for water - plastic lever 1/4 turn by hand turns it off.
@convert - we have Gas central heating - I don't turn the electric off at the mins, I meant we turn of everything at the wall.
Some insurance polices will mandate it if you are away for more than a certain period eg 4 weeks or so.
We have a cat sitter in twice a day to feed and water the cats, so leave everything on.
Always leave lots of lights on timers as well, so house follows its normal pattern when we're away.
I've had two water leaks.
First one, the outside tap was left (my fault) on and the hosepipe popped off, the water then drained through the garage for the whole day whilst I was at work, came home to two inches of water across the floor and all the foam matting floating on top (which meant it looked dry at first glance!)
Second was two weeks ago, popped out to the garage before going to work and as my wife turned off the bathroom taps a plumbing joint popped open in front of me and started flooding the garage. (I'd re-used a push fit 90 so my fault)
Point being, it's probably more likely you are going to have a leak whilst the house is occupied with pressure fluctuations and washing machines vibrating into their own plumbing etc, so the only reason for turning it off when you go away is damage limitation of water meter charges. 12 hours of water running from the loft is probably going to do as much damage to the house as a weeks worth?
PS I sometimes unplug valuable stuff if we have a big thunderstorm (and then enjoy the show) but last time we had a few flashes, I was pondering whether I should go and unplug my employers electric van sitting on my drive. (and now I'm wondering if I can claim 15 minutes overtime with night rate to do so 😉 )
about 10 years ago, our neighbours across the road (10 yr old at that time, new build, concrete floors) came home from holiday to find the house awash...
Huge insurance job - they were decanted to another house for around 10 months. The work involved removal and replacement of the whole downstairs basically, walls, wiring, bathroom, kitchen, utility, coverings, decorating and the longest part was the weeks with dehumidifiers running to get it dry enough to do the work. Scary..
It was down to a leak under kitchen sink.
My parent’s big thing was locking internal doors when they went to bed at night / went out, I have no idea where this came from but over the last few years I started just removing keys from the house as it was so annoying and dangerous
doing this over night is probably a bit much, but locking internal doors when you go away for a period of time isnt a bad idea in terms of limiting how far a burglar gets inside your house.
We were burgled last time we went away, they came in through the patio doors in the lounge, if I had locked the internal lounge door it might have stopped them from going any further and taking both our cars.
PS I sometimes unplug valuable stuff if we have a big thunderstorm (and then enjoy the show) but last time we had a few flashes, I was pondering whether I should go and unplug my employers electric van sitting on my drive.
We have friends in France, near Limoges, and whenever they have thunderstorms Orange Telecom SMS all their customer to say unplug your modem from the phone line...
We've had all our outside lights blown once by nearby lightning strike - it blew up the 230ac->12v DC power supply which supplied them all.
My parent’s big thing was locking internal doors when they went to bed at night / went out, I have no idea where this came from but over the last few years I started just removing keys from the house as it was so annoying and dangerous
I remember my Grandmother doing this when I was a kid!
The plumber we use was saying that he always turns his water off at the mains before he goes away for any length of time of the simple reason that he's seen how much damage water can do if it's left leaking for a week or two.
It makes sense to me but I usually forget if we go anywhere.
I wish I had done last week!
I've fixed the loo now, but the kitchen ceiling will need repainting once it has dried out.
I'd never bothered, then we had a leak once while away. Dodgy DIY plumbing by our predecessor, a plastic connector had been incorrectly assembled. Luckily on the ground floor and out the back which is concrete with a bit of tatty carpet on top, we just binned the carpet and no other damage. Perhaps lucky we were only away for a few days and not a month, and it was only a steady spray from a joint not a full-on mains powered pour.
A major change in recent decades has been (a) warmer winters (b) central heating (c) better insulation all of which greatly reduce the chance of a burst pipe (though arguably the last could make things worse in the loft space). My parents always drained and switched off everything for more than a weekend away but we don't do that, just turn the main tap off in the house. Leave on the electrics.
One way of looking at risk assessment is incidence times severity. Even if incidece is low it might be worth taking mitigation steps.
locking internal doors when you go away for a period of time isnt a bad idea in terms of limiting how far a burglar gets inside your house.
LOL. Locking internal doors means you get all the internal doors smashed as well as the entry point.
but locking internal doors when you go away for a period of time isnt a bad idea in terms of limiting how far a burglar gets inside your house.
Nah, just means all the internal doors will be kicked down as well as well as everything else. Fair enough though if the doors are solidish and open the "wrong" way from a conservatory etc.
Some insurance polices will mandate it if you are away for more than a certain period eg 4 weeks or so.
Over 60 days (usually) or maybe 30 days (very occasionally) these days. And that's without regular inspection. It's referred to as the property being "unoccupied" and cover is very restricted.
if you have a proper water leak you can lose your entire house - ceilings down the whole lot. happened to next door, hotel for a few weeks job, fella at work has not had a second floor for months whilst the insurance company takes the piss out of him. as in he can see the upstairs ceilings from downstairs. horrible stuff with kids and so on.
i turn mine down to off, and then open it a crack just to keep the central heating topped up in case. no idea if this is a good idea. makes me feel better though. i also remember to shut and open the valve every few months because when you do really need it you need to know its going to shut off.
i unplug everything apart from the hive and some timer lights. we get a friend to come in and water the plants. i guess you have to do what you can.
LOL. Locking internal doors means you get all the internal doors smashed as well as the entry point.
Yep, inlaws were burgled last year, they had a sliding door on the office which wasn't locked but confused the burglars, who just kicked it in!
The most I do when I go away, is dead bolt the external doors and I have a timer switch for a couple of lights that turn on and off (lounge and bedroom) and I close the internal doors, if nothing else just to stop people seeing further than the room of the window they're looking through. I figure thieves will be looking for easy targets, make your look difficult/occupied and they'll go somewhere else. I've turned off some appliances at the wall if I'm going for longer than a week, but I've never turned off the water.
I don’t even have a front door to lock
people have internal locks on their doors ? Can't say i've ever seen a house with locks on them.
True Story - Summer Holidays 2021. A full ten days away from home touring. At the point we were just reaching the home straight onto the Devon coast line having travelled all the way from North Yorkshire. I'd done all the usual Dad tasks, secured the fort, checked the car, packed the car to the gunwales with famly camping gear, planned the route, printed the tickets, etc etc... It had been a long trip, motorway delays, packed out services, typical Dad (Me) doing all the driving and everyone else snoring away with the odd 'are we there yet'.
Theres a lull in the chat. I'm a bit fed up by this point. Partner turns to me and says... I kid you not...
"I think theres a leak under the kitchen cupboards".
You can guess how well I reacted to A) this information, B) the timing of the delivery of this information.
I'm in the 'turn it off' camp now, in case that wasnt clear.
We just have two neighbours who hold a key and know where our gas, water and leccy is.
@convert – we have Gas central heating – I don’t turn the electric off at the mins, I meant we turn of everything at the wall.
Ah, so you don't do what you said - you just turn off/unplug appliances. But that makes more sense (although as I'm sure you know gas central heating has electrical pumps so being gas or otherwise is irrelevant).
My parents used to close internal doors; they told me it was to slow a potential fire. I only turn the gas heater off when away - my smart meter tells me it costs (leccy & Gas) me 33p a day.
people have internal locks on their doors ? Can’t say i’ve ever seen a house with locks on them.
1940s build, doors not changed. If you’re really curious the house is for sale and I’ll give you a STW discount 😉
We just have two neighbours who hold a key and know where our gas, water and leccy is
So do we, but - do you realise how much of a mess your house will be inside, due to escape of water, before there is any sign at all from outside/next door?
Oh and yes, best mates a fireman - always, always, always close all internal doors every night. He assures me it makes an enormous difference to A) your chance of surviving and B) whether your house is completely ruined or not.
I do. It's a few seconds job.
You can get AI powered automatic valves
See above.
Water left on in this house but everything unplugged except the broadband (which links to the cameras and lights).
Scottish house get winterised Oct-Mar with full water drain, power off, shutters, everything of any value removed, everything that can get damp removed etc.
Water and gas off at mains here, I used to work for a gas company and the engineers all did it, so I do. 30 second job, mains taps seize up if you don't touch them for a while.
We turn the electric off also, and the heating goes to 7 degrees “holiday mode”.
How long do you need to go away to justify emptying the freezer?
I’d be nervous of turning the gas lever in case of a causing a leak, it’d go into my Fearful Jobs category!
If there's ANY possibility that turning your gas off is going to cause a leak, then calling Transco (SGN or whatever they are called now) should probably be your immediate response NOW! That said, I don't turn the gas off when I go away but knowing that I can immediately isolate the gas supply without risk of making a leak is essential.
Can’t say i’ve ever seen a house with locks on them.
Pretty standard for Victorian, Edwardian, 1930s homes.
I get that not everyone understands the concept, and advantages, of automation 🤷♂️I do. It’s a few seconds job.
You can get AI powered automatic valves
See above.
we have cats that need drinking water & plants in the garden that need watering so water supply stays on when on holiday!
WiFi water leak sensors are cheap (vs potential damage) and can be strategically placed under pipes/taps to warn you of a leak.
On the subject of lights, also have a plugin for the smart lighting system that "replays" the lights from the previous week if we're away, so more realistic than just having select lights on a timer & doesn't need to be manually activated 😃
Six months ago we were awoken at 5am because the water pipe to the bath tap had blown off under pressure.
Just a short amount of time left a big clean up job. One week of that would have been devastating in an old house.
Water is turned off now when we go away.
I did this on a 2 week holiday and the mrs laughed at me, we then went away for 4 days and left it on and found our header had a leak which when in constant use it didn't cause issue but left a while it obviously did, so I'm very glad it wasn't leaking for 2 weeks
Closing internal doors gives you considerably better chance of escaping a fire as it limits the smoke spreading, especially doors to the hallway/stairs. It probably only slows the spread of fire by just a few minutes especially if you have the cheap panelled doors.
Pretty common I'd say. We have a couple to keep unwanted chaos between visiting dogs and our cat. Much more effective than putting a chair in front of the door to try and remind people not to open it!
I get that not everyone understands the concept, and advantages, of automation 🤷♂️
Oh I understand both.
we have cats that need drinking water & plants in the garden that need watering so water supply stays on when on holiday!
Fair enough, in your case you need to leave the water on so other safeguards are required.
WiFi water leak sensors are cheap (vs potential damage) and can be strategically placed under pipes/taps to warn you of a leak.
Stopcock was cheaper. It came free with the house. So on a cost/benefit analysis in my particular case the stopcock wins.
It does bug me that from pretty much anywhere I can monitor the house electricity consumption every five minutes, gas consumption the next day, but water consumption depends on the bill turning up every three months.
Given we're always being told to conserve water these days, and how many times we get pestered about smart meters for electricity and gas, I find it bizarre that there aren't more ways to keep track of water consumption. I could tell you from memory how much electricity and gas we use, but water I have absolutely no idea.
Even if it doesn't update particularly frequently, it would mean you could keep an eye out for slow leaks while on holiday, or have a notification sent to you or something like that...
presumably you don't turn the stopcock off [I]every[/I] time the house is empty though, like if you all go to work or out for the day? 🤔 As leaks can only happen when you're on holiday, right? 😂Stopcock was cheaper. It came free with the house. So on a cost/benefit analysis in my particular case the stopcock wins.
there is a great DIY project that's very popular for doing exactly this, in the home automation groups. Keep meaning to implement it but as usual there are so many potential projects & limited time 😂 The basic idea is you using something called an ESP-Cam which is an extremely cheap (under a tenner) Wifi-enabled microcontroller with a built-in camera. It runs off a battery but sleeps most of the time (although if you can run power to it even better!), you put it in the manhole or whatever so it can see the numbers on your water meter & it wakes up at set intervals, shines an LED and then sends an image of the readout back to your server where it recognises & logs the value. Very clever stuff & all doable for about £20 all in, tops!I find it bizarre that there aren’t more ways to keep track of water consumption.
exactly, what you (or more exactly, the software) will be looking for is some kind of continuous usage which is always the same amount above the variable usage thus indicating some kind of leak...Even if it doesn’t update particularly frequently, it would mean you could keep an eye out for slow leaks while on holiday, or have a notification sent to you or something like that…
I won't have any keyed locks inside a house (neither our own home or the ones we rent out). I don't want anybody who needs to escape because of a fire or similar having to run back into the flames to find a key to unlock the front door.
And my experience of stop cocks is that by turning them on or off after a year or so is an excellent way of causing a drip drip drip or more. Not something you want to be dealing with at 4am with the taxi waiting outside to take you to the airport.
presumably you don’t turn the stopcock off every time the house is empty though, like if you all go to work or out for the day?
No I don't. Do you put wi-fi leak detectors under the taps if you all go to work or out for the day?
I always turn off water when we go out for more than a few hours. We have a setup with a simple internal valve that turns 90 degrees to close just downstream of the ‘official’ stopcock in an easily accessible spot. It’s partly because the plumber who completely re-plumbed the house when we did our conversion recommended it and partly because some friends had just had a flexible pipe split under their bath and came back to find the house flooded including a brand new kitchen ruined. I think their rebuild approached £60k and a was great deal of hassle.
yes. I mean, I don't put them there, they are there permanently. That is the whole point!! 😃 They are pretty small/discreet.No I don’t. Do you put wi-fi leak detectors under the taps if you all go to work or out for the day?
One of our local home automation suppliers does a sort of grab bag of useful household sensors on offer every now and again.
Temp/Humidity/Proximity/Leak, usually about 40 for 5.
And Zigbee, not WiFi. The battery would last about two days...
yep you're right of course, they are Aqara zigbee ones (not WiFi)!And Zigbee, not WiFi. The battery would last about two days…
Turning off All Of The Things sounds like something my grandparents would do. The first whiff of a thunderstorm in Botswana and the RF lead would be out of the telly, every electrical device in the building unplugged. My mum's house is peppered with these stupid 3-way 'brick' power extensions which are a fire risk in themselves, everything with its own little switch which gets diligently turned off after she's done with the kettle or whatever.
Turning off the water isn't something that ever even remotely occurred to me. Exercising the stop cock occasionally is probably a good idea though. I had a leak at the old house and fully shutting off the water was a bugger of a job. I had to take a spanner to it, I was scared it was going to snap and then I have a proper problem on my hands.
I'm not sure as I even know where the tap is in the new place. I should probably rectify that.
found ours (after some searching!!) right in the corner of the kitchen under the built-in cupboards which the previous owners installed (had to remove the trim board things to see it). You literally cannot reach it, unless your arms are 6' long 🙄😂 So ordered a handy tap-turner-extension thingy off Amazon which now lives under there as well!I’m not sure as I even know where the tap is in the new place. I should probably rectify that.
locking internal doors when you go away for a period of time isnt a bad idea in terms of limiting how far a burglar gets inside your house.
"Oh no, the internal door is locked, best go somewhere else" said no burglar ever. Once they're inside an empty house, perhaps behind a now-closed door, they have all the time in the world to kick doors through.
I find it bizarre that there aren’t more ways to keep track of water consumption.
If I remember my last water bill correctly, waste water disposal is more costly than fresh water delivery.
I don't even have a stopcock.
It's a borehole, a pump and a reservoir tank...
And of the three leaks i had in my last place *with* a stop cock, one was on Severn Trents side of the stop cock, one was under the front lawn (ST again) and the third was completely my fault, i forgot to tell the wife not to use the bath until i'd been to get a replacement washer for the waste, as they hadn't sent one...
Had to repaint a corner of the living room ceiling.
my external stop cock took a shit in the cold weather. -20 outside.
Flooded the dining room.
New Laminate flooring and skirtings were required.
even if the internal stopcock had been turned off id still have been stuffed.