Snow bird home monitoring

[OneOleMan]

We always shut off our water supply at the meter, even in the summer. I realize some of you cannot do that, but for the rest it is an easy solution.

I've been doing the same even if gone for a weekend. It doesn't take long for water to destroy a house.

 

[AK snowbiker]

We are still pretty low tech for monitoring home systems. I have a camera from my PC pointed to a thermometer. I can remote into my PC using my phone or iPad and check the temperature. Since I do not have a light over the thermometer I can only do this during daylight hours.

We always shut off our water supply at the meter, even in the summer. I realize some of you cannot do that, but for the rest it is an easy solution. Last week we stopped into our local plumber, on another matter, and mentioned our shutting off the water, he agreed it was the best thing to do. Even if our water heater were to leak, the 50 gallons would get to the floor drain, but that would be the end of the leaking.

Consumer Reports did a recent review of the home monitoring systems; they actually like a model from Samsung better than the Nest. You may already know that Nest is owned by Google.

Shutting the water off to the house is another great idea. I need to check with our water utility if I can use a water key to turn off the house line, and if I can, is it safe to run our system. Scott

 

[Donna D.]

Shutting the water off to the house is another great idea. Unfortunately we don't have that option. Scott

But you can shut off the water to all the sinks, toilets and washing machines. I've seen a house nearly float away due to a washing machine hose breaking (not freezing).

 

[AK snowbiker]

But you can shut off the water to all the sinks, toilets and washing machines. I've seen a house nearly float away due to a washing machine hose breaking (not freezing).

Yeah, I do shut off the water supply to the rest of the house. Sorry, wife took the laptop, trying to type this on a iPad. I need to check with our plumber if we can isolate our heating system from the rest of the house. Appreciate everyone's experience and ideas. Grrr, typing on a iPad. Scott

 

[gbaglo]

I'll take this opportunity to say, never use dish washing liquid in place of dish washing detergent. You will end up with two feet of foam covering the kitchen floor and it will take an afternoon to wipe up.

 

[cpaharley2008]

The FloLogic system will shut down the water if it senses abnormally high flow. Sometimes when washing more than one car it will activate. Also great for teenagers taking long showers..
My heat uses water thus the water has to be on. I do have stainless washer hoses also.

 

[Patandlinda]

The FloLogic system will shut down the water if it senses abnormally high flow. Sometimes when washing more than one car it will activate. Also great for teenagers taking long showers..
My heat uses water thus the water has to be on. I do have stainless washer hoses also.

Speaking of teenagers taking long showers - my daughters got one warning then many times had to go to outside home to shut off water . After a while they learned . Pat

 

[cpaharley2008]

This took care of that issue, when alone, they had to towel off and go down to basement to reactivate the water. After awhile, the long showers ended...... Now we all have hot water.

 

[Iowa Dave]

Our home has a large quarter turn ball valve ahead of the meter, I can also use a water key to shut my water off at the top of the hill where it comes off the main well line. Years of managing public facilities taught me that you cannot have too many isolation valves.
Glenn. My son made the dishwasher mistake one time, about a half an hour before guests were scheduled to arrive for dinner. Didn't do it again.
I hate mopping up water and pulling up wet carpet.
Dave

 

[jxoco]

Okay, for all our snow birding southern neighbors in Canada and the northern "outside" US states. Does anyone do any type home monitoring for freeze type damage?

We have internet at our cabin so that is a prerequsite.
A Honeywell wireless thermostat that I bought from Costco controlls the heat. this allow us to set the heat down to 6 C degrees.
With my iPhone i can put the heat up or down but I've also programmed the thermostat to reduce the heat to 6 every 6 hours.
I use D-Link cameras and switches to monitor and control a number of things.
D-Link also makes a water detector but I don't use one.
I have a camera that points at a weather station that gives me inside and outside temperature.
I have put a camera (under the lid ) on the propane tank gauge.
I have other things but you might not need them.
The thermostat was 119$ i think and the cameras have varied in price as I started buying used ones 40 to 90$. the switches go on sale from time to time 30 to 50$

I started off with Belkin WEMO stuff but quickly stopped expanding when I found all of their stuff had to be on one wireless controller. The D-Link stuff can be on any controller so now from my iPhone I can monitor our cabin and our townhouse. I've started adding stuff to the townhouse...

I had started about seven years ago useing pc's and web cams and solenoid boards to do this stuff but now I can just buy it and plug it in.
I have a lot of experience...