Turning water off - question

[BoxMN]

The water heater element thread made me think of how we turn off water at cabin... can't recall, but I don't think I asked this here before, forgive me if I have, I am getting old...

We have 3 yo place. Well, with pressure tank, Waterboos softener, 120 gallon off peak electric heater. Most of lines are pex, just some copper coming out of pressure tank and on top of water heater. Haven't had any issues at all, but want to be safe rather than sorry. We want to prevent water damage should something happen.

Build told us that the best way to prevent water to continue to flow IF we would have problem, is to pull the fuse on the well pump. Easy to do, we have been doing that. But we have not been turning off the valve of water coming in. We notice that when we return after a weekend, and after putting in fuse again, that we get lots of air in the line (okayt, not that much) and we sometimes get really REALLY salty water for a short time.

Should we just turn off the valve when we leave, but leave fuse in? Should continue to do as we are? Should we turn off the water softener? Main thing is I do't want to burn out the heater element, or will the heater retain all the water even if the pressure tank goes down a bit?

Hope that makes sense. I am not worried about cost, as we are there all the time using hot water, and the off peak only costs us $8 per month (I checked it, that's it!) And salt is cheap, and it doesn't use that much. Thanks for any advice.

[Surface Tension]

Sounds like you keep the cabin heated because no mention of draining any plumbing, supply or drains.

If you cut power to the well pump then you should cut the power to the water heater.

It would make sense to cut the power to the softener but I've never run one so I could be wrong.

If its not heated then I'd flip the Main and kill all the power.

Draining the supply line and drains as well.

[BoxMN]

Yep, we keep it heated and use it all winter long. Maybe I should leave everything on and not worry...?.. So far in going on four years, no leaks, no probs. We also have dual heating (electric boiler wirsbo in slab and gas furnace) so I am pretty sure I don't need to worry about freezing, especially since it never goes more than about 4-5 days until it gets used again.

[jdfisherman]

Sounds like your issue is not freezing, but worrying about a pipe bursting or fitting leaking. We have city water - I shut the valve at the water meter whenever we're gone overnight. That way if something happens the water can't run and flood everything. So, leave the well pump fuse in and just shut off the valve - no air in the lines to deal with when you get back.

(We had friends that had a pipe burst at their cabin - they figure the water ran for 3 or 4 days. What a mess!!)

[JeffB]

Flip breaker for the pump, hot water heater, and softener. The Soft water heater is trying to cycle with no water coming in and bringing water then air into the system.

[BobT]

One thought that comes to my mind. Is your water softener configured to cycle automatically only or do you have it set up to cycle every so many hours/days regardless of use? My Waterboss is set up to cycle on demand but there is a feature where I can also cycle every so many days regardless of demand. I don't use that feature and I don't recall how many days but if yours is set up to cycle once every X number of days and your water is turned off, that's not a good thing. You can deactivate that feature if it is turned on. On mine if that feature is active it indicates so in the display.

[leech~~]

Flip breaker for the pump, hot water heater, and softener. The Soft water heater is trying to cycle with no water coming in and bringing water then air into the system.

Plus 1. This is exactly what we do at our camper and mom's cabin. If you leave the hot water on it keeps heating and if the water is off there is no way to refill the small amount that still evaps out of it causing the air gap you get when you turn your water back on when you come each week. The softner will keep cycling using up salt for no reason and the main thing is to shut off the water incase something lets go when your gone running and flooding everything. Sometimes it's not just freezing but fittings that just let go and then your screwed!

[BoxMN]

Thanks for the ideas all!

Waterboss cycles on demand, I believe, but will look this weekend.

I really don't want to turn the hot water heater off, as it is 120 gallons, and off peak, and want hot when we get there. So tryign to find solution to prevent fitting leak flooding, but not have softener or heater get damaged. We go enough that is not needing to try to save money by turning off heater, as it only costs $8 per month with regular usage (yep, I checked in summer when it is the only item on the meter).

Almost makes me think maybe a shutoff (hot and cold) past the heater and softener might be a solution?...

[Tom7227]

When I was putting in the new hot water heater I'm pretty sure I saw some stuff about auto shutoff devices by the stainless hoses at the M store. I know Rich Trethewy on this old house put something on a water line for a wash machine that was an auto shut off. I think it's some sort of jobberdo that has a thingamajig that sits in a pan under the device. If the thingamajig gets water on it it sends a signal to an electric solenoid that shuts down the water.

Also I am sure there's an "app" for putting something on the water heater so you could crank it up with a phone call or a text or a tweet or some dam thing.

Sort of what it boils down to is how much do you want to spend.

[Tom7227]

Box,

I just thought of something. The utility will charge you $X for the off peak setup no matter if it isn't used at all. Might make the payback on the remote control turner upper jobberdo a bit long.

Tom

[Surface Tension]

The air is an indication that when you shut the pump off water is being pulled down back into the well and air is getting pulled in from some place like a faucet. Having the water conditioner on this I'm not surprised about the salty water.

So I'm assuming your keep the cabin heated.

My main concern would be a bursting pipe and your not there.

Simple solution is turn off the power to the pump. If you have a valve before the expansion tank close that and it won't have as much tendency to siphon back.

The diptube in an electric water heater should be above the upper heating element so even if there is a siphon you should be OK because it(element) is still surrounded by water. Maybe you can verify this with documentation from the manufacturer.

If the tank sprung a leak then at the very the elements would at least burn out.

[DANR]

I also turn both the valve and the pump breaker off when we leave. I got in the habit of checking the water softener to see if it is due to regenerate (it has a meter that goes down to 0 as water is used). If so, I unplug it until we get back. Otherwise it will go through the cycle without water but reset the usage clock. result, hard water

[harvey lee]

We do leave the house at 60 degrees all winter.

I do however drain all the water lines for the house and I also drain the water heater and turn the power off to the water heater. I also unplug the softener. The valve at the water pump is also closed. Anti freeze dumped dowmn all the drains too.

After I have the water lines drained, then I have a hook up to hook my air compressor right to the water line by the well pimp. I run air through all the water lines and the water heater so everything is totally empty. It does take a while for the water heater to drain as it is a 52 gallon elec. Helps to open a hot water faucet to get the water heater to drain faster.

Reason for draining everything is if we were to have a power failure or the boiler went out, we would not have broken water lines or a busted water heater as they are all empty.

Takes about 2 hours do all of this but I have no worries about severe water damage from a broken water line or a flood basement due to a heat failure.

We do have an alarm set to go off at the power company if we lose power and they do notify us of that. If this were to happen, I can have the neighbor go to the house and fire up the generator to supply power to the house and it would give me a bit of time to get there to clean up the lost water if I did not drain the lines.

Reason for this is I do not have to sit home and wonder if the heat is on or if I have a huge mess. Some secutiry I guess for a bot of work when we close the house up for the winter.

[Tom7227]

You can also set up a system that will monitor the temp in the house. You could drop the temp down a lot and maybe save some dough. You could have an issue with the heating system that doesn't involve a total power outage and so you still wouldn't be advised.

A friend went cheap and got some sort of temp sensor that would turn on a light if the place got too cold. A neighbor was asked to watch for the red light in the window. The thing went off 3-4 times last year.

If you have a phone up there you can get a setup that will do the monitoring and actually allow you to turn things on and off with a phone call. I suspect that would get a little spendy and may be more technology than you want. If you have a 12 year old in the family the kid could figure it all out for you in a heartbeat.

[harvey lee]

I realize that we spend a few more dollars keeping it that warm for the winter with noone there the majority of the time.

Everything works great when we get there and we have never had any issue with the house to date while we were away.

The temp sensor and the light is a great idea but the road does not get plowed in the winter and our closest neighbors are 3 miles away. The only time they plow is if we are going to go there and then the township plows the road for us when I call them.

[LightningBG]

We turn off our pump with a switch we installed right next to the the pressure tank, and shut a valve on the well side of the pump/tank. This way their is a little water and pressure in the system, but not much in case a pipe or fitting leaks. We dont have a softeners, so I'm not sure on that, but we do leave the water heater running all the time and have never had a problem with evaporation.

[BoxMN]

Thanks all. Good info and advice. We do use it EVERY weekend in winter, do not have a phone there, and I don't want to spend extra money No prob in 4 years, but want to be as safe as possible.

I think I will keep pulling the pump fuse (like flipping a switch) but add to also turn the valve off. Maybe look at the water softener as well, and if it will regenerate, pull that plug as well.

The only thing that wasn't working correctly was the occassional over slaty water. Never had element die, so like Surface said, water must surround it even with the little draw down that liekly occurs.

Thanks for info!

[Tom7227]

I'm pretty sure the salt doesn't have much chance to come in contact with the potable water. The salt is used to clean the resin in the tank and then it all gets flushed out down the drain. I suppose if you draw water during the recharge you could suck in some salt but other wise it shouldn't be an issue. At least that's what I've learned about how a softener works.