Traveling south for the winter is a great way to stay healthier and happier. And with a complete home security system, you can be even happier knowing your home is safe and secure.
Who doesn’t appreciate warmer weather when everyone they know is surrounded by snow? Leaving your home for months while you chase warmer weather, however, can leave you with a number of home security concerns.
Properly addressing those concerns is the key to ensuring your home’s safety — and a complete home security system is the best place to start.
Getting ready to fly south for the winter? Here’s how to keep your nest safe and secure.
Closing Your Home for the Winter
Closing your home for the winter means locking it down with the assumption that no one will be in it until the arrival of spring. Making sure lights and appliances are turned off and doors and windows are locked is one thing. Ensuring that your home is completely protected is another.
Here are the steps you should take:
- Install a complete home security system that will immediately alert you, and the authorities, if there’s a problem in your home.
- Make it appear as though your home is still inhabited: program timers on a couple of lights from your security system’s app, stop mail and newspaper delivery, and make sure someone checks on your home occasionally.
- Shut off the water to the entire house. There’s no need for water coming inside if you aren’t going to be there. Drain the water lines after the water has been turned off.
- Set your thermostat. You don’t want to turn it off entirely since you don’t want freezing temperatures to cause damage. Instead, set it to around 50-55 degrees.
- Clean your home thoroughly and consider having an exterminator come to chase out any pests who might decide to set up shop while you’re gone.
- Unplug everything in your home. This will help prevent fires and decrease energy usage while you aren’t there.
- Clean out any food in the kitchen before you leave. Make sure that any perishables have been removed. Food that will last until your return — canned goods, flours, and other things that won’t go bad — should be stored in airtight containers.
- Take care of any routine maintenance that needs to be done on your home before you leave. Small problems can turn into big ones if they’re ignored, and they might not be there when you get back!
What Do You Need to Know?
When you’re away from your home, you won’t be there to find out about things that can cause serious damage. If you were there, you would know about them and be able to act immediately. Using a complete home security system to let you know about serious problems within your home is the best way to ensure that you protect this valuable investment.
- You need notifications if your sump pump fails and your basement begins to flood as a result of the increased water.
- You’ll want water detection throughout your home in case of roof leaks or other issues.
- You need to know immediately if smoke or carbon monoxide is detected in your home so that you can send someone to act on this emergency.
- Of course, you want to be notified and have the proper authorities dispatched if someone is trying to break in — and it’s critical that you be able to tell the difference between a family member who simply failed to turn off the security system and an actual intruder.
A Complete Home Security System
It doesn’t take a lot of effort for someone to realize that your home is vacant. Even with timers on your lights and no mail to pile up, a neighbor or routine visitor to the neighborhood can quickly figure out that there’s no one at home in your house! A complete home security system, however, will ensure that your home is protected against the possibility of burglars and vandals.
The benefits of home security are obvious — especially if you know how to avoid the scams and choose a quality home security provider to protect your home while you’re enjoying your winter.
- Having a sign or sticker that lets vandals and thieves know that your home is protected is often enough to deter them.
- Complete home control allows you to find out who’s been coming and going around your home.
- Alerting the police or fire department in the event of an emergency could be the critical step that saves your home.
- Check in on your home remotely whenever you like.
A complete home security system is the best investment you can make for your home if you’re planning to spend the winter in a warmer climate. Protect your home so that it will be waiting for you when you get back. Include a home security system as part of your regular fall maintenance, and you’ll be able to decrease your worry about your home while you aren’t there to protect it.
At ProTech Security, we have a strong history of experience, innovation, and customer service. The ProTech Security Advantage is more than 30 years of service in Northeast Ohio and a strong commitment to providing quality, cost-effective protection for homes, businesses, educational institutions and government facilities. To see what ProTech Security can do for you, contact us today.
