What to Do Before You Leave for the Holidays

Every year I get calls from people who came home from Christmas to find burst pipes and water damage. Their week at the beach cost them $10,000 in repairs. Don't be that person.

The Night Before You Leave

Set your thermostat to 55°F minimum. Not 45°, not off. 55°. Pipes freeze when the temperature inside your walls drops below 32°F. If it's 20° outside and you've got no heat, the temperature inside your walls will drop fast.

Don't turn off your heat completely to save money. The $30 you save on gas isn't worth the risk.

Shut off the main water supply. This is the single most important thing. If a pipe bursts while you're gone and water is flowing, you could have 500+ gallons per hour flooding your house. If the water is off, the damage is limited to whatever was in the pipes.

Your main shut-off is usually where the water line enters your house, near the street-facing wall. It's a valve on a 3/4" to 1" pipe. Turn it clockwise until it stops.

Drain your pipes after shutting off water. Open every faucet (hot and cold) and let them run until water stops flowing. Flush all toilets to empty the tanks. This removes most water from your pipes. Can't freeze if there's nothing there to freeze.

Leave the faucets open while you're gone. This allows any remaining water to expand without bursting pipes.

Water Heater

Turn it to "vacation" mode if it has one. This keeps the pilot light on but doesn't heat the water. Saves energy and prevents issues.

If it doesn't have vacation mode, turn the temperature down to the lowest setting.

For electric water heaters, some people turn them off completely at the breaker. That's fine for trips longer than a week.

Kitchen and Bathrooms

Run your garbage disposal with ice and citrus peels. Clears it out so nothing sits there rotting for a week.

Pour a cup of water with a tablespoon of vegetable oil down each drain. The oil sits on top and prevents sewer gases from coming up through the dry P-trap. Your house won't smell like a sewer when you return.

Turn off shut-off valves under sinks and toilets. Extra protection in case something fails while you're away.

Clear out the area under your sinks. If something does leak, you don't want cleaning supplies and personal items sitting in water for days.

Appliances

Turn off supply to washing machine. Those rubber hoses can burst. It's rare, but it happens, and you're not there to notice.

Turn off supply to dishwasher. Same reason.

If you have an ice maker, either shut off its supply line or empty the bin and turn it off. Ice makers leak sometimes. One week of slow dripping = big water damage.

Outside

Disconnect all garden hoses. Water trapped in the hose can freeze and back up into your pipes.

Shut off outdoor faucets from inside. Most homes have shut-off valves for hose bibs. Close them, then open the outdoor faucet to drain the line.

Cover outdoor faucets with foam insulation covers if you can't shut them off from inside.

The Extra-Paranoid Option

Ask a neighbor or friend to check on your house every 2-3 days. Give them your main shut-off location in case they find a leak.

Install a smart water sensor near your water heater, washing machine, and under sinks. They cost $30-50 each and alert your phone if they detect water. Worth it.

Install a smart thermostat so you can monitor and adjust temperature remotely. If a cold snap hits while you're away, you can bump up the heat from your phone.

When You Return

Turn on the main water supply slowly. Listen for unusual sounds—hissing, dripping, running water where there shouldn't be.

Close all the faucets you left open.

Turn shut-off valves back on under sinks, toilets, and appliances.

Check under every sink and around your water heater for signs of leaks.

Run water at each fixture for a minute to clear the lines and refill P-traps.

Turn your water heater back to normal temperature. It'll take 30-60 minutes to heat up.

Charlotte Weather Reality

Most of the time, Charlotte's winter is mild enough that you could skip all this and be fine. But we get 1-2 hard freezes per winter, and you don't know when they'll hit.

This checklist takes 15 minutes. Coming home to frozen pipes takes days and thousands of dollars to fix. Do the math.