If you're one of those lucky snowbirds that leave home and go south for a month or two in the winter, there's a couple of things you need to do. Number one, you want to shut of the water to your home. And you'll find that riser enters through the foundation of your home. Go ahead and shut that off and then drain the lines to prevent any freezing from occurring. Open up all the valves in all the sinks of the home until it stops running, and then you're set. Also, drain the water heater. Now before you drain the heater, you want to make sure you cut off the power. If it's an electric heater, hit the circuit breaker, if it's gas, shut the gas off to the water heater. Another thing, you want to keep your home heated, but you don't want it too hot, right? I would say somewhere around 56 degrees would take care of that. Also pay attention to the drains. A lot of times water will evaporate from the drains, and all of a sudden you'll have a sewer smell in the home. So taking some mineral oil or RV fluid, pouring it into the drain. It won't evaporate, keeping the sewer gas on the outside of your home.
Here's a couple other tips: make sure any grain you have in your pantry, get rid of that because critters if they get in your home will just love that. Take most everything out of the refrigerator. Unplug it, keep the doors open, maybe even a little bit of activated charcoal in there.
