Leaving Town? Shut Off the Water Before You Go

Should you really shut off the water for a normal vacation?

For anything longer than a weekend, yes. A supply line does not care whether you are home. Washing machine hoses, toilet connectors, and icemaker lines fail at random, and the difference between a puddle and a gutted house is how long the water runs. At home, you hear it and shut it down in minutes. On day 4 of a trip, a burst half inch line has already moved thousands of gallons through your floors and walls.

The numbers back this up. The Insurance Information Institute reports that water damage and freezing accounted for 27.6 percent of homeowners insurance claims in 2022, with an average payout of $13,954, and that about 1 in 60 insured homes files one of these claims every year. Slow leaks add up too. The EPA WaterSense program estimates 10 percent of homes have leaks wasting 90 gallons or more per day. Closing one valve on your way out removes almost all of that risk for the length of your trip.

The 10 minute pre-trip checklist

1. Find the main shutoff valve. It is usually near the water meter at the street or where the water line enters the house. If you have never located yours, our step by step shutoff guide walks you through it with photos.
2. Turn it clockwise until it stops. Gate valves take several full turns. Ball valves need a quarter turn so the handle sits crossways to the pipe.
3. Open the lowest faucet in the house. Let the lines drain for a minute. This drops the pressure so a weak fitting has nothing left to push against.
4. Set the water heater to vacation mode. Gas models have a VAC or pilot setting on the control dial. For electric, flip the water heater breaker off. Never leave an electric heater powered with the water supply closed.
5. Check the washing machine hoses while you are there. Rubber hoses that show bulges or rust at the fittings are the single most common failure we see. Braided stainless replacements cost about $25 a pair.
6. Ask your house sitter to do a 30 second walk. If someone is feeding the cat anyway, have them glance under the kitchen sink and at the water heater once a visit.

What about the water heater while you are away?

A tank heater on vacation mode keeps the pilot lit but stops maintaining 120 degrees around the clock, which saves gas and stress on the tank. If your tank is past 8 years old, this matters more than you think. Tanks in our area die at 8 to 12 years, faster than the national pace, because Sonoma County water runs moderately hard and scales the bottom of the tank. A tank that fails while you are gone drains 40 or 50 gallons on the floor and then keeps feeding the leak if the main is open. If yours is in that age window, read our guide on what a leak from the bottom of the tank means before your next long trip, and budget from real local numbers: replacement runs $1,800 to $3,600 installed in Sonoma County.

What if the yard still needs water?

Irrigation usually tees off before the house shutoff, so closing the house main leaves sprinklers running on schedule. Check where your irrigation line branches: if it splits off at the meter, you can close the house side and let the drip system run. If everything feeds through one valve, a smart move for August is watering deeply the morning you leave and asking whoever checks the house to run a hose once mid week. Do not leave the whole system open for the lawn's sake. Grass recovers from a dry week. Hardwood floors do not recover from a wet one.

What a burst line does to an empty house

A half inch supply line at normal pressure moves several gallons a minute. Run that for two days and you are past what most extraction companies can dry in place, which is when floors come up and drywall gets cut. The insurance average of $13,954 is an average, and two story homes skew far higher because water finds the ceiling below. We have walked into Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa homes where a $30 toilet connector did more damage than a kitchen fire would have. Every one of those calls had the same detail in common: nobody was home, and the main was open.

If you come home to standing water, shut the main, kill power to affected rooms at the panel if outlets got wet, and call us at (707) 308-5599. We answer 7 days a week, and our emergency plumbing service covers all of Sonoma and Marin County.