An empty house in the Upstate is not a house at rest. The humidity works on it, the water finds its way out of a weak fitting, and a summer thunderstorm can take the power for a day while nobody is there to notice. Carolina Heating Service employs plumbers, heating and cooling technicians, and electricians, and each has their own recommendations for you to consider before leaving town. Here are all three lists, in the order they are usually done, so a Greenville homeowner can borrow them before locking the door.
Plumbing tips
A plumber’s concern is water running while nobody is home, because a supply line that lets go in an empty house runs until someone finds it, and the washing machine hoses are the most common source.
- Close the valves to the washing machine and, for a trip longer than a week, shut off the main water valve and open a faucet to drain the pressure from the lines.
- Turn the water heater to its vacation setting or lower the temperature, and for a long trip turn an electric heater off entirely.
- Test the sump pump by lifting the float or pouring water into the pit, since a thunderstorm can fill a crawl space on Piedmont clay while the house is empty, and a battery backup pump, which our sump pump team installs, keeps it running if the storm also takes the power.
- Run water down every drain before leaving, since a trap that dries out lets sewer gas into the house, and have a slow drain cleared before the trip rather than found after it.
- Check beneath each sink and around the water heater for any dampness, since a fitting that weeps a little now is a ruined cabinet floor by the time you return.
- For a home on a well, listen to the pump with every fixture off. A pump that cycles when nobody is using water is a leak announcing itself, and it will run up the electric bill the whole trip.
Best practices for your heating and cooling system
Life here means dealing with humidity, because the most common mistake before an Upstate vacation is turning the air conditioning off to save money, and in Greenville’s summer a closed house without cooling climbs into the upper 80s while the moisture settles into the floors, the furniture, and the closets. A week of that is how a house comes home smelling musty.
- Raise the thermostat rather than switching the system off, to around 80 to 85 degrees in summer, so it still runs enough to pull moisture from the air; in winter, 55 or above keeps the pipes safe.
- Change the filter before leaving, so a system running unattended for a week or more runs efficiently.
- Leave interior doors open so conditioned air reaches every room and no closet sits closed and damp.
- Look at the drain pan under the air handler before leaving, since a condensate line clogged with summer algae overflows the pan while nobody is home, and an attic air handler’s overflow comes through a ceiling.
- For a trip of a month or more, schedule the seasonal tune-up before leaving rather than after returning, so a system that will run unattended has been checked.
- Consider a smart thermostat, which lets you check the house from the road, lower the setting the day before you return, and sends a fault notification to your phone if the system stops.
Mind your electrical system
Don’t forget power! Both the surge that comes when a summer storm knocks it out and brings it back in flickers, and the idle draw of a house full of electronics nobody is using.
- Unplug the television, computers, and small appliances, which takes them off the grid during any restoration surge and stops their idle draw for the week.
- Confirm the whole-home surge protector’s indicator light shows it is working, if the home has one, since a spent device protects nothing.
- Turn the refrigerator and freezer down a notch so their contents hold longer through an outage.
- Press the test button on the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, because a neighbor hearing an alarm is the only warning an empty house can give.
- If the home has a standby generator, confirm the weekly self-test is running and the controller shows green, so the house stays cool and the sump pump stays on if the power fails while you are away.
- Show whoever is checking on the house where the breaker panel and the water main are.
The one item all three share
Each of the three would tell you the same thing last: ask someone to walk through the house once during the trip, and after any storm. A neighbor who notices a warm house or water under a sink turns a two-week problem into a two-day one. Give them the number to call, and if the trip falls in hurricane season, tell them which storms to watch for.
When you get home
Before you unpack, walk the house. Open the water main if it was closed and run the faucets for a minute, look under the sinks and around the water heater, glance into the sump pit, and lower the thermostat and listen to the system start. If the power was out while you were gone, look at the panel for tripped breakers and give the cooling system a few minutes before judging it. Our post on what each trade checks after the power returns covers that walk-through.
Carolina Heating Service has served Greenville and the Upstate since 1981 with all three trades under one roof, which means the tune-up, the sump pump test, and the surge protector check can be handled in one visit before a long trip. Schedule online or through the 24/7 website chat, and members of the Carolina Comfort Club receive priority service, which helps when the trip is coming up quickly.