"Leaving Your Home Alone ! "

Buckeye

Well-known member
I recently purchased a book " Leaving Your Home Alone" in order to get some suggestions on what things to do when leaving your home for extended trips in your RV. Does anyone on this forum have checklists or additional suggestions ? Thank you in advance.
 

jmgratz

Original Owners Club Member
I recently purchased a book " Leaving Your Home Alone" in order to get some suggestions on what things to do when leaving your home for extended trips in your RV. Does anyone on this forum have checklists or additional suggestions ? Thank you in advance.

I haven't read the book but one thing we always do if we are leaving home from overnight or longer is turn off the water at the meter. Don'tneed to come home to a house full of water in the event of a broken pipe. We also unplug all electronics and turn off all lights.
 

Hoosier Wolverine

Active Member
I always turn off the water, unplug the softener (so it doesn't cycle without water), set the gas water heater to "pilot", as well as unplugging all electronics. Depending on season set furnace to a warm enough setting to protect pipes from freezing. Arrange with a trusted neighbor to keep an eye on things. Give cell phone number to those that might need to contact you.
 

priorguy

Well-known member
Also make arrangements for snow removal, stop newspaper and mail delivery eliminating hints that you aren't there. Short term just use a trustworthy neighbour. Of course the "Hotel on Wheels" missing from the yard could be a big giveaway too. Just sayin'


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

donr827

Well-known member
I was told by an appliance repairman to turn the ice maker off in the fridge, flip the wire thing up, so that the ice maker will not try to make more ice when water is not available.
Don
 

Buckeye

Well-known member
Thanks for all the great tips. I contacted the water heater manufacturer and he said to turn the water heater off and drain it. He said that bacteria can grow in water heaters in less than a month if left idle. We plan to put everything in one fridge and turn off the other.( prop open the door) This means I have a lot of beer to consume in order to make room in the fridge!
 

porthole

Retired
Does anyone on this forum have checklists or additional suggestions

I use a cheklist app on my phone. Works good for us. The list can have priorities, secondary folders sorting options and more. And as you tap the check box the item rolls to the bottom.

I use one list for when we leave the house and a second for breaking camp.

Easy to reset and easy to adjust on the fly, say for making sure you bring extra dog food because your trip is longer then normal.

List! by Secret Society.
 

porthole

Retired
Here is my current leave home list. The headers with the - are actually folders that open to the list items. The folder stay on top until all items in the folder are checked. The flags are the priority level, actually colors in the app.
Not every item is needed for every trip, but a tap and it is gone. Some things like "dog food prep" is dependent on time we leave and travel time. We can't get to the dog food if the bike and cart are in the garage. And the dogs don't understand "you have to wait".

Screen shot:

List.jpg

Trailer leave home:
 

Attachments

  • List.Trailer leave home.pdf
    256.8 KB · Views: 74

Theresau

Well-known member
We do ditto on what has been suggested by other replies. We also expanded our ADT service so that it includes a monitor on the sump pump and a house temp monitor (in case furnace fails...). We installed a whole house generator a while ago after being out of power for 2 weeks in 100+ degree weather (we're ok if house loses power - long story here about losing power for 2 weeks in over 100 degree weather).

Only extra cost was the cost of the monitors.
 

Westwind

Well-known member
For those of you who want a stand alone system I have a SensaPhone 400 that I got online, if you put the name into google a number of vendors will come up. It called and warned us last year when we lost power at the house during the Northeast Blizzard and after we got home when our sump pump didn't work. It is set up to call our cell phone until I call the house and shut it off via the cell phone and a code I set up. It has room for 4 more sensors so I have added sensors for the other three zones in the house. If this is a direction your interested in I would highly recommend this unit.
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
We do ditto on what has been suggested by other replies. We also expanded our ADT service so that it includes a monitor on the sump pump and a house temp monitor (in case furnace fails...). We installed a whole house generator a while ago after being out of power for 2 weeks in 100+ degree weather (we're ok if house loses power - long story here about losing power for 2 weeks in over 100 degree weather).

Only extra cost was the cost of the monitors.

We've had ADT since 1994. Have a battery back up sump pump and a 16K automatic generator. All three have proven their worth.
 
Top