The leaving-town drill
Annual · typically June
Why it matters
A house fails differently when nobody's home to hear it. The supply line that lets go while you're at work is a wet floor at 6 p.m.; the same line during your week at the beach is a collapsed ceiling, buckled floors, and a hotel stay measured in months. Time is the multiplier on every failure — so the leaving-town drill is mostly about shutting off the things that can multiply.
Winter trips raise the stakes in your county: a furnace that quits on day two of a cold snap means frozen pipes by day four. The 55°F rule below isn't superstition — it's the margin that keeps pipes in exterior walls above freezing.
Run this as a drill once — write your version down — and every future trip is twenty minutes of muscle memory.
What skipping it costs
$2,000–$60,000
The worst water damage doesn't come from the biggest leaks — it comes from small leaks with nobody home. A burst supply line runs at full pressure for however long you're gone: a weekend makes a mess, a week makes an insurance claim, and two weeks makes a gut renovation. Every insurer's file cabinet is full of vacation-timed losses, which is why some policies now require water shutoff or checks for longer absences.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
The week-or-more checklist, in door-lock order:
- Water off at the main. The single highest-value move on this list. (You found and exercised this valve on its own cards — this is why.) Trips under a few days, at minimum shut the washing machine valves — its hoses are the most common burst.
- Water heater to vacation. "VAC" on the dial, or lowest setting. No point keeping 50 gallons hot for an empty house.
- Winter trips: heat stays ON, set near 55°F. Never off. Open sink cabinets on exterior walls. If a hard freeze is forecast while you're away, that's the trip where the water-off step is non-negotiable.
- The neighbor-with-a-key system. One trusted person who can walk the house mid-trip beats every gadget: they'll smell, hear, and see what no sensor reports. Trade the favor; it's the oldest home-monitoring network there is.
- Small stuff, fast: fridge ice maker off if you shut the water, trash out, mail held or collected (a stuffed mailbox is a vacancy billboard), one lamp on a timer.
- Leak sensors, if you have them (their own card), get a battery glance on your way out.
Hire it out
$25–$75National fair range — local labor moves this number.
There's nothing to hire for the drill itself. If you travel a lot, a house-check service runs $25–$75 per visit and is worth it for multi-week absences — insist on photo check-ins with each visit.
Smart shutoff valves with leak detection are the one gadget here that's genuinely good — and genuinely optional. If you're gone more weeks than you're home, price one. For everyone else, the valve you already own does the job for free.
Ask the tech
- For a house-check service: what do you actually look at per visit, and do you text photos?
Red flags you're being upsold
- Smart water-shutoff valves pitched at $1,500+ installed as the only responsible option. They're genuinely good gear — and a $0 quarter-turn of your main valve does the same job for a week away.
- 'Vacant home monitoring' subscriptions for a one-week trip. A neighbor with a key beats a dashboard.
The call
DIY, always — it's a twenty-minute walk on your way out the door. The main water valve is the whole ballgame; everything else is refinement.