I may be wrong but isn't there an insurance you need to have if your home is vacated for a certain period of time?

Not that I know of, but I'm sure if one asked an insurance company, they would happily say yes and sell you an extra policy.

We have no home watch company in MI like they have here. We have been taking care of this ourselves, following a previous poster's long list of preparations.

We've never had a problem with seals. We turn the fridge, water, ice maker off. The water is drained. Cover the johns with saran wrap, open undersink cabinet doors. We have the furnace and hot water heater checked every year before we leave, and a person walks through every week.

Frankly, I would be quite happy if my dishwasher broke, since I've never liked it.

Just a couple of things we do in addition to the excellent advice already given:

1) we have marked several switches in the circuit breaker box with colored tape - red for ones which should be turned off (esp. water heater), blue for ones which must be left on (esp. a/c).

2) put the carts on their BatteryMinders - keeps them trickle charged and desulphated

3) lock the door linking the house to the garage

4) turn off the fridge after putting its contents into the chest freezer - cheaper to run

We also use a humidistat, and have never had any problems with dishwasher etc. seals drying out. And a trustworthy neighbor checks around, inside and out, once every few weeks.

Remember that your electricity bill includes a monthly service charge, so you will never get the bill to zero however much you turn off.

Another thing we do is unplug everything unpluggable--tvs, printer, fridge, washer & dryer--despite the fact that we have a whole house surge protector through SECO.

Learned the hard way about plugging car battery into trickle charger, but fortunately it was still under warranty, and towing and new battery were covered 100%. But now we know. The only other car we've left unattended is a '67 Mustang, which always fires right up after 6 months. But it doesn't have any electronics. Duh.

We built a new house in Sanibel last year. The insurance co. Requested a copy of our contract with a home watch service before they would our house. We are gone for about five mos. a year. Our excellent, outstanding home watch person is Julianne at Peace of Mind home watch (there r two companies here with this same name). She charges $50/mo. but is so worth it. Her no. is 352-250-2984.

I'll Get-R-Done

:spoken:

unless you have something special(?) hooked to your heat pump/AC there is no water connection to heating and cooling units.

HAving been in the business of manufacturing heating and cooling systems heat pump as well as regular....I am unaware of any water connection unless you are using one of those systems that heats your water as well.

btk

We bought a house last August which we are using as a vacation home until my wife retires in the fall of this year. I was recommended to get some one to check on the house when were away and we chose 'The Home Watch' and Jeff Halstead. He charges $10 per visit ( once a week) and we are very happy with his service.

thehomewatch@yahoo.com 352-409-6733

I was told to set the A/C at 85 and leave the water on.

Bill & Sheila

I am using Jeff too. So far, so good!

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Could you share the phone # for rich and marge ? Do you know if they are taking on customers ? Thank You