Yesterday, as I was casually sifting through a mass of emails, I glanced at one from Geico Insurance and almost deleted it. Good thing I read through it first. What caught my eye in it was the list of things that could cause a water disaster. As we all know, water is an archenemy of RVs.
I already know to turn the outside water faucet off when leaving the RV for a few days (or during freeze warnings). But this was different, it was a warning about not running appliances that use water when away from home. That home could be a sticks-and-bricks or an RV.
We are lucky enough to have both a washer/dryer and a dishwasher in our RV. Both take an abysmal amount of time to cycle through, so I routinely start one or the other when we will be gone for a couple of hours in hopes that it will be done and silenced when we get back.
Now, after reading the warnings, I could well envision water cascading down our steps as we open the RV door. A few simple things can prevent those water disasters:
- Don’t run appliances that use water when gone.
- Turn off the water pump when leaving.
- Turn off the main outside faucet when leaving when hooked up. While we didn’t have an internal flood, a pesky animal once bit the fresh water hose and the water ran all day, creating a small pond around our tires.
- Install a water leak detector. There is a huge variety of them on Amazon. You can get ones that are stand-alone, ones with sound alerts, ones that send alerts up to 1/4 mile away, ones with and without Wi-Fi…
These simple steps can prevent water destruction in a home base or RV.
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Lesson learned the hard way. We now turn off the water to our camper as well as the power to the water heater if we are going to be gone for several hours. Ours is a 26 ft towable, but a flood is a flood!!! We learned that the hard way with our home many years ago when taking our daughter 6hrs away for college. I got a call from my neighbor asking if there should be water running out of our garage. My negative response began a long-distance game of phone tag to family to find someone who could access our house. Once my brother made entry it was discovered the water heater had failed and that there was a 2 inch pool covering the entire downstairs, being held back only by the door jamb going out into the garage. I was able to reach a friend who owned a flood recovery business just at closing time on a Friday evening. Fortunately, they went right to work, the water was cut off, anything movable was repositioned in the garage, and the drying out process begun. Damage $5,000+.
When I leave my house for 3 to 5 months out in the RV I turn off the water to my washing machine but leave the house water on. I live in the desert and being gone for that amount of time especially in the summer the traps dry out and boy does the house stink when you come back! I have a neighbor come over regularly and run water in all the drains and flush the toilet.
I’ve never been away from the RV for a long time…up until this year, I’m sitting with my grands while my RV is across town in the park for week. I turned off the water this time.
Another Captain Obvious article. Duh.
Not everyone knows everything like you apparently do, Gary. Have a good day. 🙂 –Diane at RVtravel.com
You go Diane !
Thanks, Tom. Watch out! Feisty old grandma here. Just sayin’. 🤣 Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Gary: learn how to scroll on past. Unless you have something to contribute. SMH
Woohoo!! Great reply Diane…..
Thanks, Bill. I’m 99.99% easygoing and extremely lenient with folks’ comments (much more so than the other moderators). But some people just bring out that 0.01%. Actually, this was very mild. Many years ago someone made some really stupid comment about RVtravel.com and I (politely) put him in his place. When I went to our in-person meeting the next day, everyone looked at me and said, basically, “Wow, Diane. Was that really you?! Whoa!” Plus some of our writers emailed me about my comment. They didn’t think I had it in me. So, watch out. Ya ain’t seen nothin’ yet.🤣 Have a good night, Bill. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
P.S. to Bill. I ran into an old T-shirt the other day that I got when I went to San Diego to watch my son graduate from Marine Boot Camp in 1999. It says, “I may look harmless, but I raised a Marine!” (And then he was in the second tank to go into Iraq during the war, but made it home safely, luckily.) My other (also 6’8″) son was a Seattle Seafair Pirate for a few years. So, I can say, “My son the Marine” and “My son the Pirate.” Not many folks can say that. 🤣🤣 Take care. 😀 –Diane
keep up the thoughtful and informative articles, not everyone is as blessed with all of the knowledge as Gary is and he will remind all of us of that possession without fail
Thanks, Scott. We try our best to keep our readers informed and entertained. And some of the comments are “entertaining,” as well. It’s a good thing not everyone knows everything or we’d be out of business! 😉😅 Have a great day, Scott. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Gary, be nice.
sorry Gary W but not everyone has depth of experience that you possess…some newer RV readers to this article may have more confidence in the Rv construction than you may experienced with your rig. Stop bashing the writers of these article and move on without leaving your snarky dropping for the rest of us to step in…
My neighbor went away for a couple weeks in the freezing winter. Went outside at midnight to take dog out. Heard water running, figured out it was coming from his split level house. Water poured out the top level and was a frozen water fall. Whole house was damaged. Furnace broke. They sell on Amazon a thermostat hooked to an extension you can hook to a light with red bulb. Set the temperature on thermostat and put light in window. Tell neighbor to call when light is on so you can get furnace fixed.
The dishwasher in our RV leaves when I do, so no worries.
LoL. I have the same type dishwasher. Never had a problem
!
When leaving the sticks and bricks house for a weekend or longer the water is turned off. We learned this from my mother who returned after being away for a few weeks to a flooded house due to the water supply hose to a toilet rupturing. Likewise whenever we leave the motorhome for the day the water is turned off, don’t ask how we learned that trick!
Our Simplisafe Security Alarm system alerted us to a water leak under our kitchen sink in Virginia while we were camping at the beach near Galveston, Texas! Those little water sensors seemed a bit expensive at first, but they are worth their weight in gold. A wonderful neighbor came over, turned off the whole house water main and cleaned up the mess. Saved us thousands of dollars and lots of misery. Since then, we always shut off the water for the whole house before leaving on any trip.