I'm leaving for a new job 200 miles away. I haven't yet sold my house, so I'm going to have to leave it empty for a while. What should I do with the central heating? It's a standard boiler fed from a header tank, with a pump, radiators, a hot water tank and a three-way valve.
I presume turning everything off entirely is not a good idea?
I thought of leaving the heating setting to 'On' permanently and setting the room stat to low, just in case we get a late frost. Should I also set the hot water to come on for a few minutes, just to keep the three-way valve turning, and also to ensure that the boiler does fire up at least once a day?
With the C/H running, I can't turn off the gas or electric. What about the water?
I looked after an empty house for nearly a year, everything was left on, the heating on a low setting, nothing went wrong, when I visited for the post the house was pleasantly warm. This was also excellent for when potential buyers went round to look.
This house was empty when we bought it, heating was off and drained down, mains off, all water drained down.
Alternatively leave it all on, including the mains water as you suggest. I'd probably not bother with leaving the Hot water coming on but won't do any harm.
Check you insurance as well. Ours requires either the it all drained down, or left on to protect against frost.
I had this prob when selling me mums (empty) house.
We left the services all connected and the CH coming on for an hour a day in the wee small hours (coldets time) to prevent frost damage and damp build up.
The water was left on, but you can get a reduction in council tax and water rates for unoccupied premises.
The gas and electricity are metered anwyay, so you just get a rebate or a low bill when the meters are finally read.
Ideally, it needs to be kept a few degrees above the outside temperature to keep it dry, but at a minimum of 5 deg C to protect against frost. As most control systems cannot do this, a reasonable compromise would be set it to maintain 10 deg C 24/7.
That sounds a very good point. Empty houses with the heating off can smell musty very quickly. The radiators kicking in from time to time will circulate the air.
I've had to sort out similar situations for grand parents houses in the past, one of which stayed like this for 3 years.
Yes. You could probably set the house to around 10C, unless it's an older 9" brick wall construction in which case I found 13C was required to keep any damp smell away.
No. Actually, conventional three-way valve connections are that the resting position is hot water, and the fully driven position is central heating. What you could do is fire up the heating for a few minutes every time you visit, if the outside temperature is such that it is unlikely to have run for some time otherwise.
I did turn off the water. On visits, check the level in the central heating header tank. It will drop anyway -- I kept a saucepan in the loft to top it up from the cold water storage tank. Might want to check your boiler isn't going to burst into flames if a leak should develop and empty the primary heating circuit.
I certainly didn't turn off the electricity. Various timers and the like were rigged to make the houses look occupied (actually they probably looked more occupied than when they were really lived in;-).
Probably not a good idea to do what one of my neighbours did though. Each time I walked past the house, you could clearly see the giant TV was on, but it was rather a giveaway that he apparently spent the
2 weeks watching a big blue screen with "No Signal" displayed on it;-)
I'd leave the heating on low but turn the water off. If the HW tank starts emptying for some reason from a major leak to a dripping tap the boiler will turn itself off and need a manual reset so there's no problem.
Also a good idea to leave heating on so that your insurance company will believe that it hasn't been unoccupied should the worst happen.
But then I'd find one who will, I'm sure it won't be that hard. My parents had to deal with this, and as it happens they had no problem with the insurance co.
Fire while away from house. Oh where were the occupants? oh it's been empty has it, oh dear, you aren't covered for the 30 grand of repairs.......
Im a plumber for a local council and carry out 20 30 drain downs fo
frost protection each year ch and domestic water you dont need to leav heating on to protect against frost you wasting money just drai everything down cold water storage tank central heating and hot wate cylinder ( no water in pipework) don forget to turn all electrics of for central heating have a few lights come on by timer etc and tur gas off then forget it nothing more to worry about kevi
Im a plumber for a local council and carry out 20 30 drain downs fo
frost protection each year ch and domestic water you dont need to leav heating on to protect against frost you wasting money just drai everything down cold water storage tank central heating and hot wate cylinder don forget to turn all electrics off for central heating hav a few secuirty lights timers or such come on then forget it nothing mor to worry about and you can turn off gas kevi
Surely this would be covered if you had demonstrably made arrangements for someone to visit the house on a regular basis just to check that everything is in order?
I think I'd be worried about leaving a house completely unopened for an extended period of time.
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