Turning water off when on holiday

Angel747

We are going away on holiday in December, and because the weather was horrible the same time last year, i was thinking of turning the water off, just in case any pipes freeze and burst etc.

Is this a good idea? I was also thinking of putting the heating to come on for an hour a day to keep the house warm and the boiler going but again, i have no idea if any of this is a good idea or not. We are away for 3 weeks and would not be able to come back if there is a problem, i just dont want the friends who are popping in to look after my cats and house to find a broken central heating system and/or burst pipes and water everywhere!

Thanks for any advise.

jennifernil

Yes, turning off water and leaving heating on are both good ideas.

When you turn off the water, open all the taps to dain down as much of the pipework as possible.

For the heating....do you have a frost stat on the system? This would protect the CH system itself. But I do think it would be a good plan to turn down all your thermostats to a low level and leave the heating set to come on at least twice a day on timer, and for more than 1 hour.

Leave all the doors in the house open, leave any cupboards with water pipes in them open. If you have a tank in the loft, you could even consider leaving the loft hatch open.

Torry_Quine

You should always leave heating on at a low setting in you are away over winter but it is surprising how many people don't, it really is a false economy. Switching off the water and emptying the pipes is also a very good idea.

SailorSam

If you turn the water off and open up the taps to drain the water, but left your boiler on
wouldn't that damage the system. The boiler could be trying to heat up water that isn't there ????

Torry_Quine

SailorSam wrote: »

If you turn the water off and open up the taps to drain the water, but left your boiler on
wouldn't that damage the system. The boiler could be trying to heat up water that isn't there ????

As I don't have central heating I didn't know it used water in the system in which case it would as you say be potentially very dangerous.

s_b

im with sailorsam,no way would i turn my water supply off and leave the water system on because it cant top itself up
i turned off the water supply at work at xmas for the week and drained down but because it was so cold the pipes still came apart at two different places due to freezing so my advice is get friends to make sure boiler working properly and run taps a little each day to keep everything regular

MaggieBaking

We went on our honeymoon last year during the beginning of "the big freeze" "the great snow" etc

We left our water switched on and our heating on 24 hours, set to a low temperature. I have been told that it takes more energy to heat a house up, rather than having it maintaining a temperature all day. This will also help as when you come back you'll need to warm up the walls again if you know what I mean.

We had family who checked on the house for us. Apparently there was a problem with the outside tap due to the cold weather.

Sorry, not knowledgeable advice - just saying what we did in a similar situation.

MX5huggy

Wont the friends that look after the cat want warm water to clean the cats bowls and wash their hand after handling the litter?

Kernel_Sanders

SailorSam wrote: »

If you turn the water off and open up the taps to drain the water, but left your boiler on
wouldn't that damage the system. The boiler could be trying to heat up water that isn't there ????

You are not draining the water in your CH system! This contains anti-freeze so should be safe. It flows through a spiralled coil within the cylinder to heat that water; if there is none there then I can't see what damage that might cause.

farthing71

I would make sure the hot water heats up fully at least once a day (couple of hours) and set the central heating to come on for a couple of hours each day too - maybe over cautious but why take the risk.

Kernel_Sanders

MX5huggy wrote: »

Wont the friends that look after the cat want warm water to clean the cats bowls and wash their hand after handling the litter?

I really despair when people feel they need to have a whole tankful of hot water on tap when they only need a litre or two. This is why kettles were invented.