Going Away? How to Leave Your Home Plumbing-Safe

Do you know that 77% of people affected by water damage were at home when it happened? This is absolutely true. A study carried out by QBE Insurance surprisingly revealed this.

At first instant this really looks reassuring, but at a second glance it is entirely different. The finding questions the ideology that plumbing failures, such as burst pipes and flooding, only occur when no one is home.

Based on the research findings, 23% of people were not at home when such a failure occurred. This means that when water starts to leak no one is there to hear the hiss, grab a towel or shut a valve.

A flexi pipe that bursts an hour after you leave for holiday in Bali doesn’t run for minutes, it runs for days. Within just an hour, it will release more than 1,500 litres of water in a very uncontrollable manner.

You don’t get called out for the floods you expect. You get called out for the ones nobody checked. Following this routine before you leave for your trip saves you the stress and damage.

The best move is to turn off the water main.

If there’s one thing you must do before travelling, that would be to always ensure that you switch off the main water valve at the meter. No supply means no flood. Plumbing installations can fail but with the water off, the worst case scenario is a damp cupboard, not a ruined home. This practice costs nothing. This is usually what most plumbers do to their own homes before any trip.

There are two practical things to note.

• Find and test the main water valve before departure day: Meanwhile, a main water valve that hasn’t turned in a decade can be stiff.
• Check what part of your home still needs water while you’re away: A standard garden irrigation won’t run with the main off. So, you’ll have to plan for that, or isolate just the house line if your plumbing allows it.

In a situation where you can’t shut the main, at least close the isolation valves at the washing machine, dishwasher and toilets. They are the most connection-prone to failure.

1,500 L/hr is discharged with every single flexi hose burst. You easily catch this in minutes when you’re home, but in cases where you’re away for a week, this causes a home-wrecking flood unless the main was off.

Other things you should do would include:

• Turn the hot water system off: Before going on longer trips, switch off the electric system at the board or set gas to its pilot or holiday setting. Once you’ve shut the main water valve, most systems shouldn’t be left heating with no supply going in.
• Closely examine the flexi hoses at a glance. As you close the water valves under sinks and vanities, check the flexi hose alongside. Detecting rust spots, bulging, or frayed braids means it’s going to fail soon anyway. And it’s better to find out now than from a flooded cupboard.
• Clear gutters if storms are likely: A blocked gutter in a heavy downpour floods an empty house as effectively as a burst pipe does. Blocked gutters are the second most common cause of water damage while people are away and the easiest to miss. Gutters are above your natural sightline. You’d have to deliberately tilt your head back and look, which isn’t part of the normal “leaving the house” motion.
• Always ask someone to check in: A real person (neighbour, friend or family member) can physically walk through your house while you’re gone. Don’t ask them to check once. Ask them to check a few times over the trip. Taking this action also reduces the chances of something going wrong.

The Insurance Detail People Miss

If something goes wrong with your property while you’re away, insurance might cover it. You just need proof that you followed the conditions. Many Australian home insurance policies change how they cover an unoccupied home most especially when it’s empty for more than 60 days. While the terms vary with the insurer, many don’t ban long absences. They just require you to notify them. Check your PDS or call them before a long absence. It costs nothing, but only takes a minute

What to do When You Come Home to a Wet House

If you walk into a wet house or with a damp smell, take the steps below.

• Turn off the main water supply immediately: This stops the damage from getting worse.
• Turn off the electricity in affected areas if it’s safe to do so.
• Take photos of everything before touching anything.
• Open the place up to start drying, you don’t have to wait for the plumber before addressing the damage.
• Call your plumber and insurer on the same day so as to get things documented while the damage is fresh.

A long-running leak often means moisture has already found its way into the structure, not just the surface. Professional drying is often worth the cost to prevent mould growth.

Premium Sydney Plumber can find the source, fix it properly, and document the failure for your insurance claim.

Short Trip vs Long Trip: Two Levels of Shutdown

Not every absence needs the full set of procedures. Just adapt your home shutdown or vacation mode based on how long you will be away. Let’s look closely at the available options.

Short Trip( weekend to a week): shutting off the main water valve is still the best practice. At a minimum, isolate the water supply valves on your washing machine and dishwasher, as their hoses are the most failure-prone connections in the home. Leave your hot water system running normally.

Medium trip (A fortnight to a season): In this case, the full routine is to turn off the main water valve, the electric water heater at the board or the gas to pilot/holiday mode. Clear gutters if storms are expected. Inform a neighbour about the trip. Go over your insurer’s unoccupancy clause. For long absences that would extend into months, also flush the toilets and run taps briefly as part of your return day plan. Trap seals evaporate over time. A dry floor-waste trap lets sewer odour into an empty house, which is the smell many travellers wrongly attribute to plumbing disaster.

Long trips(Between tenants or during a sale): Treat an empty investment property exactly like a long trip. Off the main water system between plumbing inspections. A surprising share of the worst unattended floods happen in properties that are “only empty for a few weeks.”

What to Shut and What not to Shut in an Apartment

Due to the structural design of the apartment, some dwellers get a modified playbook. Most apartments have an isolation valve. You can often find it under the kitchen sink, in the laundry cupboard, or near the water meter in the corridor. Turning it off before embarking on the trip gives you the same safety you will get from an apartment operating from a main switch. If you can’t find yours, the building manager knows. Ensure you have the conversation before the trip and not during the flood. You can’t control shutting the whole building. Also, your neighbours’ plumbing still poses a risk to you, no matter how careful you’ve been. Travellers living in apartments should focus on two key things: their flexi hoses, the main flood risk, and letting the building manager or a neighbour know the place is empty. Also, provide a contact number. Water coming through a ceiling gets acted on hours faster when someone knows whose door to knock on.

The gadget option: Water leak sensors and auto-shutoff

Technology has caught up with this exact plumbing problem, and frequent travellers should harness this opportunity. Cheap water-leak sensors and auto shut-offs exist to prevent severe flooding. These affordable and small pearl-shaped pucks are placed directly under the dishwasher, washing machine and hot water tank. When they come in contact with moisture, they will sound a local alarm and push an alert to your smartphone. These smart gadgets are extremely valuable, useful and widely available. The water leak detector shortens the time it takes to detect any form of water leakage in the house and within a minute, you will be notified.

Auto-shutoff systems go further in closing the main water line upon leak detection. These systems work by monitoring water flows and patterns. It has a motorised valve on your main, paired with sensors or flow monitoring, that closes the water automatically when it detects a leak. This protection works even when your phone is in flight mode over the Pacific. Some insurers look kindly on auto-shutoff systems .

However, none of these systems replaces the option of you turning off the main by hand. It costs nothing and never fails. For a property that’s often empty, sensors under the known risk points plus an auto-valve are legitimately good setup.

The Come-Home Checklist

Returning home has its own small procedure, and within three minutes you should be done with the plumbing checks.

• Turn the main water valve back on slowly, then walk around the house listening for hissing. With every tap off, the meter should be still and the house silent. When you hear the hissing sound or observe a creeping meter, it means something’s wrong.
• Open taps briefly. Run it until the water runs clear, purging air and stale water from the lines.
• Restart the hot water. Switch power back on, or relight the pilot per the panel instructions. Give the storage tank an hour or a few to recover before judging it.
• Check under every sink and around the tank once pressure’s been restored for a few minutes; a marginal fitting that survived the shutdown sometimes objects to repressurisation, and better to find it with towels in hand.
• Flush toilets, run water into floor wastes, and check the garbage disposal after long absences to refill evaporated trap seals and banish any drain odour. If the drain runs slowly, try baking soda before drain cleaner, and if that doesn’t work, it’s a drain camera job, not a bottle.

The Plumbing pre-departure checklist, all in one place

Everything above, condensed into a plumbing prep checklist worth screenshotting the night before a trip:

1. Water main off at the meter: Test it earlier in the week, and don’t rely on its stiffness on departure morning. In an apartment, use your unit’s isolation valve instead.
2. Hot water set for absence: For longer trips: electric off at the board, gas to pilot or off. For short trips: leave it running.
3. Appliance valves closed: washing machine and dishwasher taps off every trip regardless of length. It takes ten seconds.
4. Check flexi hoses: Look under sinks and vanities for rust spots or bulges. Take a photo and schedule a plumber for your return or before you leave.
5. Gutters and grates clear if there’s any chance of storms in your window. Five minutes with a glove beats a claim.
6. Ask someone to help: including a neighbour, friend or sitter, giving them a key, your number, the main location, and a plumber’s number. For long absences, request an actual walk-through visit every week or two.
7. Insurers are prepared for absences nearing the policy’s unoccupancy limit, usually about 60 days. A phone call will notify the stakeholders involved in the policy.
8. On return: Turn on the main water valve slowly, listen for hissing, purge the outdoor faucets, restart the hot water, check under sinks after ten minutes for pressure, and refill floor-waste traps after long trips.

The landlord and short-stay host edition

Two groups below run this risk on repeat and deserve to be studied. Landlords and short-stay hosts usually have their properties empty over and over again. It’s a normal part of the business. They would need a different approach from running through a summer plumbing checklist before trips.

Landlords with vacancies: Here, Turning off the main between tenancies and inspections should be standard practice. Since no tenant is around, it’s also an ideal time to check the flexi-hose and hot water system.

Short-stay hosts: Here, your property isn’t empty. You will have different strangers come around to stay on a weekly rhythm. Since they don’t know anything about the house, you won’t rely on them to notice or fix the damaged plumbing system. The host playbook is that you will build the property in such a way that it protects itself from damage automatically. For example, install leak sensors under wet areas that connect to your phone. Use quality hoses everywhere and add quarter-turn isolation valves. There’s much more you can do.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Do I need to turn the gas off at the meter too?

It’s not required for short trips if the gas appliances are with proper safety devices. For long absences, shutting the meter costs nothing and provides peace of mind.

• What should I actually leave the house-sitter?

Four things on one page: where the water main is (a photo helps), where the switchboard is, your plumber’s number, and your own number plus when you’re back.

A sitter who knows how to shut the main turns a bad leak into a manageable one. It stops the damage from spreading, even if it doesn’t undo what’s already happened.

• Is turning the main off bad for the plumbing?

No, the plumbing system is designed to handle being pressurised and depressurised. The only genuine caution is old, seized valves and doing it fast. A main switch that hasn’t turned in fifteen years can weep once finally exercised, which is exactly why the pre-trip test run matters.

Conclusion

An empty home turns a five-minute plumbing failure into a week-long one. The answer is almost embarrassingly simple: turn off the main, set the hot water, check the hoses, clear the gutters, brief a neighbour, and tell your insurer about long absences.

None of this requires special tools or trade knowledge. It’s just attention paid to the plumbing fixtures most likely to fail while nobody’s home. It could be a hose, a valve, a stormwater drain that’s come loose, a clogged drain nobody noticed before locking up.