A mother, father and child walk out the door of their home with luggage

5 Ways to Protect Your Home While on Vacation

Vacation is an important moment for you and your family to rest and re-energize for future projects. While on vacation, you must ensure your home is safe from criminals and electric-related hazards. You can only have a peaceful and relaxing vacation if you are sure your home is safe from all dangers. Before leaving for a vacation, it is important to ensure that you unplug electronics, adjust the thermostat, and switch on emotional sensors to secure your home. Here are tips for ensuring you’re safe from electrical and security issues.

1.   Ensure that your Security Lighting is on

You must secure the exterior of your home from any potential disturbance. Switching on motion-sensitive outdoor security lights creates an illusion that you are at home. Take advantage of the motion sensor lighting, which can sense distinct movement near the back entrance, front door, and side gate to provide security to your home while on vacation.

Also, apply a timer to the exterior lighting to illuminate your home only during desired hours to save energy. You can also use the timer with the indoor lighting to signify to strangers that you are at home.

2.   Unplug Your Electronic Devices

Imagine returning from vacation to find your electronics fried because of a power surge. Avoid such unfortunate incidences by ensuring that you unplug all devices before stepping out. All electronics that are of no use should be unplugged. Examples of such items include television, gaming systems, coffee makers, cell phone chargers, and lamps. Remember, these devices can consume energy even when they are not in use. Therefore, unplugging protects your devices and saves on energy consumption.

3.   Adjust the Thermostat Depending on Weather Condition

Extreme weather conditions can mess up your home while you are away. Too cold weather conditions can threaten the safety and functionality of the plumbing and piping system on the interior of your walls. You can set your thermostat at about 55 degrees during cold weather to prevent pipes from freezing. If the weather is mild, you can turn off your thermostat completely.

4.   Turn off the Water Heater

Ensure that you turn the temperature down to the lowest setting before leaving your home. You can save money and energy by turning off the water heater while on vacation. Some natural gas heaters have a vacation mode that can help during this very circumstance. There is no need to heat water in an empty home.

5.   Inform a Neighbor

After covering all of the above recommendations, now there is one last thing, inform a neighbor. There should be someone who can respond to your home alarm and check if everything is okay. Tell your trusted neighbor that you’ll be away. You can give them your extra key and let them take care of your pets.

You should also permit your neighbor to call the area authority during an emergency. Let them pick up your mail, which might pile up, and inform criminals that you are not around. Give them your contact so they can reach out to you during an emergency.

Contact JDP Electric, Inc.

These simple tips can save your home’s energy and keep it secure during vacation. Once your home is safe, we can say, “It’s safe to travel.” If you need any help with your electrical system before vacation, you can contact us for help. We provide services that are of the highest caliber. No matter the size of your project, we will give it the same level of workmanship and professionalism. We intend to provide quality services and ensure proper power and safety. Whenever you need a preventative maintenance, diagnostic, upgrade, or repair, we are always ready to assist you.

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