Shutting water off when away

[gar]

Actually the rubber hoses fail from deterioration of the rubber from the inside, where you can't see it. Chlorine is an oxidizer and the minute amount in city water will oxidize the rubber. They will fail without warning and inspections are next to useless.

Here are two hoses that are best in class:

Fluidmaster No Burst and Watts FloodSafe

I had problems with the first generation of flood safe braided hoses. If you turned on the water too quickly, the hose would perceive the sudden usage of water as a burst pipe and shut off the water supply. To reset the flood safe hoses, you have to disconnect the hose and then reconnect the hose. All the false positives frustrated the homeowner and I had to replace all the flood safe hoses with regular braided hoses.

 

[lamgos]

good point, isn't there something to do with plumbing antifreeze too?

If you are travelling for any length of time it is also not a bad idea to drain your pipes so a furnace failure won't result in froze pipes.. very easy to do, only takes 2 min

 

[Ceiling Cat]

Should you leave one tap open in the basement so the pipes won't freeze or am I thinking of outside water pipes?

If you have closed the main water valve and then opened one tap in the basement, all the water left in the pipes will drain out. There will be no water in the pipes to freeze in case the electricity goes off.

For taps on the outside, you can get long stemmed valves that actually close off the water on the inside of the house as you turn the knob on the outside.

 

[dsc]

Actually the rubber hoses fail from deterioration of the rubber from the inside, where you can't see it. Chlorine is an oxidizer and the minute amount in city water will oxidize the rubber. They will fail without warning and inspections are next to useless.

Here are two hoses that are best in class:

Fluidmaster No Burst and Watts FloodSafe

For the record I did replace the rubber hoses with these braided ones. But like always I waited for a failure before doing it.