How to Prepare Your Home Before Leaving on Vacation

As a child, you think of vacation as nothing but fun. Your parents tell you that you’ll be leaving on a vacation, you pack up a few of your favorite toys, and away you go! While vacations are still fun as an adult, the story certainly looks a bit different. It seems like there’s always a million things to do to get ready for a trip and never enough time to do them. If you are currently feeling the pre-vacation pressure, we hope these tips on how to prepare your home before leaving on vacation help!

Manage Your Home’s Systems

At any given time, there are several systems working together in your home, often behind the scenes. It’s easy to take those systems for granted, but you should pay some attention to them when preparing to leave on vacation:

• Turn down your water heater. There is no good reason to keep a big container of water heated to its normal temperature when it simply isn’t going to be used for the next week or more. With that said, it’s not typically recommended to shut your water heater off—you may just want to consider turning it down a few degrees to reduce energy usage. Your model may have a convenient vacation mode you can use while away, so check your owner’s manual for details.
• Dial in your thermostat settings. The way you set your thermostat will depend on your local climate, when you are traveling, and whether or not you have air conditioning. You probably don’t want to let your house get too cold or too hot, but you can reduce your energy usage (and utility bill) by adjusting the temperature while you’re away.
• The internet of things. Do you have anything automated around your home that runs through the so-called ‘internet of things’? If so, make sure these settings aren’t going to cause problems while you’re away. It should only take a few minutes to review these settings and make adjustments as necessary.

Are Any Deliveries Due to Arrive?

PARCELBIN Package Lock Box

You don’t want to have any packages left on your doorstep while you’re away for a long period of time. Your packages may be stolen at some point during the week, and packages left on your porch may also be a signal to a criminal that you aren’t home. Additionally, your packages could be exposed to inclement weather.

Rather than delaying all purchases, consider adding a PARCELBIN package lock box to your porch. By adding a PARCELBIN to your front porch, you’ll always have a safe place for packages to be left—whether you’re away on vacation or just at work for the day. If you do as much online shopping as most people today, a secure place to receive deliveries will be a welcome addition to your home!

Consider Your Landscaping

It would be a shame to have all of your gardening efforts go to waste just because you are away for a week and can’t water regularly. If you have an irrigation system in place, check to make sure it is working properly and adjust its settings based on the expected weather. In the absence of irrigation, ask a neighbor, friend, or family member to stop by and water as needed to keep your plants alive and thriving.

Prepare Your Alarm System

It’s great to have an alarm system to watch over your home while you’re on vacation, but often the first thing a monitoring company will do when the alarm is tripped is call the homeowner. That isn’t going to do much good if you are thousands of miles away, so be sure to let them know that you’re going on vacation. With this note on your account, the monitoring company can simply call the police right away for a prompt response.

Don’t Invite Trouble

CITIBIN Trash Enclosure

Finally, it’s a good idea to think about what you’re leaving out when departing for your trip. You don’t have to pick up every last thing in the house, but the kitchen is one room that deserves some special attention. Leaving food out—even just small scraps—can serve as an invitation to any ants or bugs that may be in the area. That’s not the kind of mess you want to come back to, so clean the kitchen thoroughly before you go.

While on the matter of animals and garbage, you may want to consider using a trash enclosure, like CITIBIN. The last thing you want to return to when you get home from vacation is garbage strewn all over your yard or driveway due to a pesky garbage-foraging critter. With the CITIBIN trash enclosure, you can keep your garbage hidden while you’re away and protect it from animals like raccoons, rats and roaming cats.

Have A Great Vacation!

We hope this tips on how to prepare your home when leaving on vacation have helped to take the stress out of planning. Have a great trip!