Power off whilst away for a while?

What trouble? It's only a switch.......turn it off and enjoy your holiday.

Andrew

Yes Steve, switch it off. I have known unexpected leaks to cause a larger than usual power bill while people have been away.

This year was the first time we'd not been away in winter for a long time and the difference in the home electric bill was an eye opener....and that's without turning the water heater off when we do go away so I imagine it'd make an even bigger difference switching off.

WE shut the gas off and could not get the pilot to light up again on return. I dismantled the mechanism and put compressed air to the tube and cleared the problem. I should do house calls.

Owen

We turn every thing off except the fridge/freezer. As mentioned above you will be pleasantly surprised at your next electrical bill with the hot water system not cutting in to heat up water your not going to use. Maybe if you have nice neighbours you could ask them to flick the switch back on for you the night before. We also pull the plugs on the FM aerial (stereo) and the TV's incase of electrical storms (lightning) not that Im worried about the TV going bang as a new one would be nice but incase it starts a fire.Not sure if that can happen or not ?? Rgards Steve M

Well we don't turn anything off.

The only "active" appliance would be the hot water service.

Look at it this way. The water heats up until the thermostat registers optimum temperature then switches off power to the heating element.

If you don't use any hot water, the next cycle should be shorter as the water doesn't need to be heated as much. (no cold water has been added to dilute the hot water)

If you have an off-peak meter, which uses cheaper electricity than normal, you wouldn't be saving much if any at all, by turning the hot water service off.

When you arrive home and turn the hot water service back on, my thoughts are, you would not get HOT water during the first 24 hours. The timer for the off-peak meter would not be set long enough to heat the quantity of water in the storage tank. (probably no more than a 6-8 hour cycle)

Therefore the heating element would run flat chat for the first and maybe most of the second cycle to reach the temperature where the thermostat will switch off the power and therefore, probably using up as much electricity as it would have used if you just let it "short-cycle" each day.

That's my thoughts anyway.

We built our home and it's now 7 years old. last weekend We noticed water streaming out through mortar joints and under the bottom of an outside wall where it abutts the verandah surface. $300 odd dollars later a burst had been fixed by our friendly local plumber. The burst occurred at the junction of 'plastic' piping and copper piping - a ferrule had simply split and let go the coupling.
We got to wondering what damage might have been caused if it had happened last July/Audgust when we were away for 3-1/2 weeks in the 4x4.
We'll be turning the hot water heater AND the water off in future.

happy days
George