Holiday travel ahead? How to prep your home before a trip
There's nothing quite like the feeling of finally leaving for a vacation you've been looking forward to — unless, of course, you spend the first two days worrying whether you left the stove on, the garage door up, the door unlocked, or the water running. With the Memorial Day holiday weekend kicking off the summer travel season, a little preparation before you walk out the door goes a long way toward ensuring that the condition you left your home in is the condition you come back to.
Work through this checklist from HomeServe before your next trip, and you'll be able to relax knowing everything is handled.
Plumbing
Shutting off the main water supply before a long trip is one of the smartest things a homeowner can do. A slow leak or a burst pipe that goes undetected for a week can cause the kind of water damage that takes months and thousands of dollars to fix. Turning off the water at the main shutoff valve eliminates that risk entirely. If shutting off the whole house isn't practical — perhaps you have an irrigation system on a timer or someone stopping by periodically to water plants — at minimum, shut off the supply valves to your washing machine, which is one of the most common sources of household flooding.
While you're at it, drain any outdoor hoses and shut off exterior spigots, particularly if there’s any chance of freezing temperatures while you’re away.
HVAC
You don't need to keep your home at 70 degrees while you're gone, but you shouldn’t shut the system off entirely, either. In summer, set the thermostat to around 85 degrees to prevent heat and humidity from building up to levels that encourage mold growth. In winter, 55 degrees is generally considered the safe minimum, cold enough to save on energy bills but warm enough to keep pipes from freezing. If you have a smart thermostat, many models have a vacation mode that handles this automatically and lets you adjust settings remotely if the weather takes an unexpected turn.
Before you leave, change your home’s air filter if it’s due for replacement, and make sure all vents are open and unobstructed.
Electrical
Go room by room and unplug anything that doesn't need to be running while you’re away. TVs, computers, gaming consoles, coffee makers, toasters, and small kitchen appliances all draw standby power even when not in use, and any of them can be a source of electrical problems — up to and including fires — if something goes awry. Unplugging them in your absence is both an energy saver and a safety measure.
Leave a few lights on timers rather than leaving the house in complete darkness every night, which is an obvious signal to would-be intruders that nobody’s home. Smart plugs make this easy. You can schedule lights to go on and off at varying times from your phone, which looks far more convincing than a single lamp on a fixed schedule.
Security
In addition to warding off wrongdoers through strategic light timing, check every door and window before you leave and make sure everything is locked. Don’t forget sliding doors, as well as basement windows and other potential entry points to your home that are easy to overlook. If you have a home security system, make sure it’s armed and that your monitoring company has current contact information for you, in addition to a local emergency contact.
Avoid broadcasting your travel plans to the world on social media. That location-tagged photo from your road trip to Mount Rushmore is a public announcement that you’re not home and a veritable invitation to opportunistic criminals.
Let a trusted neighbor know you’ll be out of town and ask them to keep an eye on things. Give them a key if you’re comfortable doing so, and make sure they know how to reach you. A neighbor who can pull a package off your porch, move your trash bins back after collection day, or simply keep an eye out for anything unusual is a valuable asset for safeguarding your home.
Mail and Deliveries
Put a hold on mail deliveries before you leave, which you can do in mere minutes on the U.S. Postal Service website. Pause regular deliveries, such as packages, newspapers, and subscription services that might be scheduled to arrive. A pile of mail and boxes on your front porch is one of the clearest possible signals that a house is empty, not to mention an enticement to so-called porch pirates.
Appliances
Clean out your refrigerator, discarding anything that will expire while you’re gone, and take out the trash before you leave, because coming home to a kitchen that smells like last week’s garbage makes for a repulsive return. Set your water heater to vacation mode, or simply move the control dial to the lowest setting, which will keep the water warm enough to prevent bacterial growth without burning energy to heat water nobody is using.
If you have a dishwasher, run it before you leave and leave the door slightly ajar so the interior can dry out fully while you’re gone.
Plants and Pets
Plan for your pets’ well-being well in advance. Whether that means leaving them with a trusted friend, a pet sitter, or a boarding facility, don't leave this to the last minute. For plants, group them together near a light source to make watering easier for whoever is looking after them, or invest in self-watering inserts for longer trips.
One Final Walk-Through
On the day you leave, do a last pass through every room. Check that windows are closed and locked, make sure no appliances are left on, confirm the security system is armed, and take a quick look at the garage before you pull out of the driveway.
If it gives you peace of mind, take a short video on your phone as you walk through. It sounds a little overcautious until the moment you’re sitting in an airport wondering whether you left the back door unlocked.
This story was produced by HomeServe Editorial and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
