April checklist: closing up a Southwest Florida home before you head north

This is the list to print and tape inside the pantry door. It assumes you already know where your main shutoff is and that it works; if you do not, start with that guide, then come back. The steps are in the order to do them, with the water on until step 11 so you can run and flush as you go. Most take a minute. The whole list takes an afternoon.

Before you start: two things to schedule

1. Book the home-watch. If someone will check the house, agree on how often and what they will do at each visit. Once a month is the minimum in our heat; every two weeks is better.
2. Fix what is already wrong. A dripping hose bib, a running toilet, a water heater past ten years: none of these improves while you are gone. Get them handled before you leave, not in November.

Water heater, washer, and appliances

3. Turn off the water heater. Electric: switch off its breaker at the panel and put a piece of tape over it. Gas: set the control to vacation or off. Leave the tank full; do not drain it.
4. Close the washing machine valves. Both levers behind the machine. Look at the hoses while you are there. Rubber, or older than about five years, replace them now with braided stainless.
5. Shut the dishwasher and ice maker supplies if they have their own valves under the sink. Empty the ice bin and turn the ice maker off; the ice it would make in October is from water that sat all summer. Run the fridge dispenser into a pitcher for a minute after its valve is closed.

Traps, toilets, and the kitchen

6. Fill every trap. Every sink, tub, shower, floor drain, and washer standpipe holds water that keeps sewer gas out. Run each one for a full minute, including the fixtures nobody uses, so the trap is full and fresh.
7. Slow the evaporation. In our summer a trap can dry in a few weeks. Two approaches: cover unused shower and floor drains with a rubber sink stopper or plastic wrap taped down, or pour a small amount of mineral oil into each trap after the water, where it floats and slows the loss. Ask your home-watch to run water at every fixture on each visit either way.
8. Test each toilet for a slow leak. Food coloring in the tank, wait ten minutes, look in the bowl. Color means a hardened flapper, a five-minute swap that is worth doing before the house sits.
9. Run the disposal clean. Ice, a cut lemon, cold water, then let it run dry for ten seconds. Wipe under the splash guard. Anything left in it will be what greets you in the fall.
10. Run the kitchen sink hard for a minute so the trap is not holding food, and leave the cabinet doors under every sink ajar so air moves and the cabinet floor does not hold moisture.

Close the main, then finish the toilets

11. Close the main. A quarter turn on a lever valve. Open a faucet to confirm the water stops, leave it open a moment to relieve the pressure, then close it.
12. Flush each toilet so the tank is empty and the bowl is full. Do not leave chemicals or tablets in the bowl; they eat the flapper and stain. Close the lid. Some owners add a little mineral oil to the bowl for the same reason as the traps.
13. Note the meter reading and photograph it. Your home-watch can compare it on each visit. A meter that moves with the main closed means the house valve is not sealing, and a jump after a visit that opened it means a leak.

Outside, storm items, and the home-watch sheet

14. Disconnect and store every hose. A hose left on the bib keeps pressure on the stem all summer and is a lever for wind in a storm.
15. Close each hose bib and check for a drip at the stem. Sun and salt air harden the packing; a drip now is a stream by August.
16. Leave irrigation on and on its schedule; it is usually fed ahead of the house valve. Inspect the irrigation backflow device for cracks, leaks, and green corrosion, and photograph it. A device split by pressure or hit by a mower can spray for months unnoticed.
17. Pre-stage the hurricane items where the home-watch will find them: shutters or panels and their hardware labeled by opening, a note on which breakers to leave on, and the water heater breaker marked so nobody turns it on to a tank that may have drained.
18. Write the home-watch sheet. Where the main is and that it is closed. Where the water heater breaker is. To run every fixture and flush every toilet on each visit, then close the main again. What to photograph. Whom to call if something is wet. Tape a copy inside the pantry door and send one by email.
19. Photograph everything. The main valve closed, the water heater breaker off, each hose bib, the backflow device, the meter, under each sink, and the pan under the water heater. Dated photos are your baseline if there is an insurance question later.

Where this stops being a checklist

A valve that will not turn, a water heater that has been weeping, a hose bib that drips after you close it, or a backflow device with a crack are not things to note and leave. Each of them is a small visit now and a large one after a summer alone. The same goes for a house that has never had a leak-detection shutoff: for a home that sits empty every year, an automatic valve on the main is worth a conversation before you go.

If anything on the list did not check out, send us the photos and we will tell you what needs doing before you leave and what can wait for the fall.