Heading North For The Summer? Take Care Of Your Home Maintenance Essentials Before You Go

If you’re planning to take off on vacation, it’s important to make sure your house is well taken care of before you go. This is especially important if you plan to be away for the whole summer, but home maintenance is also important for shorter trips.

Take these simple measures to prevent major problems and avoid wasting energy while you’re gone:

• Unplug your computer and, if you have a modem, unplug the phone jack from the wall.
• Remove the food from your refrigerator, and leave it on the warmest temperature setting. If you are going away for more than a month, unplug the refrigerator but be sure to leave the doors propped open. Otherwise, the inside of your fridge will be moldy when you get back.
• Turn the water off at the emergency cutoff valve.
• Unplug lamps, stereos, televisions and any other appliances that don’t need to be plugged in while you’re gone. Anything you leave on should be plugged into a surge protector.
• Leave the door to your dishwasher open to prevent mold from growing inside.
• Turn off the water to your water heater, unplug it, and turn it off at the fuse box or circuit breaker panel.
• Leave your air conditioner plugged in if you’re concerned about heat damage while you’re gone, but set the thermostat at 85 so it doesn’t run all the time.
• If you choose to leave lights on for security purposes, choose only a few lights and hook them up to a timer or motion sensor so they don’t have to be on around the clock.
• If you have a pool, set the water pump so that it runs for only a few hours a day rather than 24/7.
• Last and perhaps most importantly, give your phone number and a key to your home to someone you trust, so that they can check up on things and contact you while you’re away.

To learn more about home maintenance before you go on vacation, contact Rinaldi’s Air Conditioning. We’ve been serving the Orlando area for more than 40 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about home maintenance and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Rinaldi’s services Orlando, Florida and the surrounding areas. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!