Getting ready for your holiday
Preparing for a holiday can be stressful, with so much to plan and think about with your holiday, it’s very easy to forget about preparing your home for whilst you’re away. What if you get a leak whilst you’re away from your home for a week. It could lead to catastrophic damage to your property, never mind the potential water bill you will incur for the use of water!
Set up your heating
If you forget to turn your programmed heating and hot water off, the energy bills could be devastating for you. You shouldn’t fully turn off your heating, if it gets too cold in your home, pipes may freeze and burst! You should set your heating thermostat to between 5-7°C, and if you have a programmer – ensure it’s set 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this will prevent your home from reaching freezing temperatures. Remember, if you have a cold water storage tank in your attic, you should open the hatch slightly, this will allow the warm air from your home to rise into the attic, preventing the pipes in there from freezing.
Turn off your water supply
Hopefully, having your heating on whilst you’re away will prevent pipes from freezing and bursting however, to be extra cautious, you should turn your mains water supply off and drain the water from the taps. Leaks don’t just occur from freezing, leaks can just happen! Having a full burst pipe on a cold water supply pipe, whilst you’re away from home for numerous days / weeks, can be devastating for you and your property. Ensure you turn off the mains stop tap inside the property AND outside the property too if you have an external stop tap.
When you return from your holiday, remember when you turn the mains stop taps back on, you should open all taps for 2 minutes to flush the stagnant water in the pipes out. This will prevent legionnaires disease!
