Tornado!
-
That's super helpful @wtg thanks!
But maybe you don't travel as much as I think you do!
No, we kind of do travel a lot.... it's stressful worrying about the house when we're away. So far, no big problems, but there are no guarantees...
The last time we were away for an extended trip, I had a friend from work come and check on the house regularly, but asking someone to check on a generator seems like a lot... In that scenario, it might almost be better to have nothing.... Except for the possibility of frozen pipes or flooding from a non-functioning sump pump.
Let's just stay home....
Frozen pipes aren't an issue if you shut off the water supply, and even better, drain the system. We did that in Door County for years and never had a problem. Then you're covered if your furnace fails (which is what we worried about in DC) and the house temps drop when you are away for long periods of time. Of course now there are monitoring systems that will alert you to temperature drops. Those weren't nearly as common when we first built our vacation home.
And for you, is a non-functioning sump pump really a disaster? I thought you only installed it after you moved in, as the previous owner didn't have one. There was some water down there, and you were correct to install something to deal with it, but it doesn't seem like it would be a huge issue if the water collected in that crawl space for a few days until the power came back on. Unlike our situation, where the drain tile is dumping tons of water into the sump pit if it's raining hard outside. Our basement would flood.
@ShiroKuro said in Tornado!:
Let's just stay home....
That's what we do!!! And we love it...
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
-
Frozen pipes aren't an issue if you shut off the water supply, and even better, drain the system. We did that in Door County for years and never had a problem. Then you're covered if your furnace fails (which is what we worried about in DC) and the house temps drop when you are away for long periods of time. Of course now there are monitoring systems that will alert you to temperature drops. Those weren't nearly as common when we first built our vacation home.
And for you, is a non-functioning sump pump really a disaster? I thought you only installed it after you moved in, as the previous owner didn't have one. There was some water down there, and you were correct to install something to deal with it, but it doesn't seem like it would be a huge issue if the water collected in that crawl space for a few days until the power came back on. Unlike our situation, where the drain tile is dumping tons of water into the sump pit if it's raining hard outside. Our basement would flood.
@ShiroKuro said in Tornado!:
Let's just stay home....
That's what we do!!! And we love it...
Frozen pipes aren't an issue if you shut off the water supply, and even better, drain the syst
I thought about doing that one time when we were away, and at this point I don't remember the details, but I decided I didn't want to do that. I think it was because of the water heater? Although now we have a new water heater...
for you, is a non-functioning sump pump really a disaster?
Probably not, but when you're not at home, you don't know what you don't know. And we had some water problems in our last house, so we're a little gun shy, as it were.
The other thing motivator for getting some kind of generator is just being without electricity for an extended time (when you'e home), and of course worrying about the indoor climate for the piano.
But I will probably drag my feet so much that we do nothing for a good long while!
