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I had a pipe burst in my laundry room with the house thermostat set at 60 degrees to save money. That room has old single pane windows and only a crawl space underneath, not a basement like the rest of the house. I am sure to keep the temperature in that room much higher now.
I am also in PA, but a single home in town, not in a row.
It's foolish to leave water running in an unattended house. I would strongly advise against it. We used to keep the faucets dripping on extremely cold nights--but that was to keep outside, underground pipes from freezing (we had a well). And we remained in the house when they were dripping.
You need to do everything you can to avoid freezing pipes, but you should also anticipate that the worst could happen. Turn off your water so that--in the event your pipes do freeze and burst--they won't be pumping water into your house. It doesn't matter what you set your thermostat at if your heat goes out completely. A friend of mine used to heat his cottage...but when the heat went out one time his pipes froze and it completely flooded his cottage and destroyed everything. Had he turned off the water, at least it wouldn't have flooded once the pipes froze. He learned his lesson. Now he turns off the water when he is gone and he still heats the place.
I have a house that I am seldom at. I keep the thermostat set at 45 degrees (the lowest setting on the thermostat). I wouldn't recommend going lower than that. Whether that is sufficient in your case depends upon where the water pipes are located. If you have any pipes in a crawl space or attic, of course you'll need to pay special attention to those areas. Buy a couple of thermometers to put where the most susceptible pipes might be. Check the temperatures in those locations when you have the heat down low.
Draining your water pipes would help. If a full pipe freezes, it's almost certain to burst. If it's empty, or nearly empty, it more likely won't burst. You don't necessarily need to blow out pipes to drain out most of the water. There is likely a valve on a lower level which you could open to just let it drain out by gravity. (When you drain, make sure to open all of the faucets above so that the pipes can drain properly.) Even if you don't decide to drain your pipes, you should turn off your water when you're away for an extended period of time.
(And, of course, it helps that you are in between two heated units.)
"It's foolish to leave water running in an unattended house." Precisely. One can make all the excuses in the world, but one flood or one water bill of $14,000 will generally put a stop to such irresponsibility.
We have a lake house we visit frequently, but it's still unattended for 1 to 2/3 weeks at a time. In north GA it usually isn't too cold but it does get to freezing quite often in winter. We got down to 20 just last week. We keep the heat at 60, turn the water off and open all the faucets/showers, etc. Including the outside hose bibs. If the water is easy to turn off just do that and drain the pipes.
First you should inspect your house to see if any pipe runs are on exterior walls. If they are all interior then you are in a much better position.
Second I would turn the water off at the inlet to the house (probably in your basement) so that if something were to burst it would not flood the house after it thawed.
Depending on where your pipe runs are vs where your radiators, heating vents etc are I would decide on how low to go.
Pipe insulation placed on any pipes you think are particularly exposed or on exterior walls. These can be heated by electric elements. Do a google search on it.
You can also place a light bulb in an area that may be prone to getting too cold such as under a cabinet. This will keep it heated enough to not freeze.
Under no circumstances would I leave the house water on while you aren't there.
In terms of reheating it before you get there you can probably get a smart thermostat that allows you to turn it up with your phone. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get one that allows you to monitor the temperature remotely so that if the heat should go off you would get an alert at a preset low temperature so that you can go check it out.
Lots of good suggestions set out above. In addition (and perhaps I missed it above) be sure to turn off your hot water heater if you decide to shut off your water. All kinds of bad things can happen if your hot water heater is still energized after you shut off the water.
I would certainly attempt to figure out where the water pipes are. Pipes in the outside wall will need a higher interior house temp. But if there are no pipes in the outside wall, the risk of a pipe bursting is much smaller, assuming the temp for the interior house rooms isn't too low!
No pipe runs in exterior walls. Row house with kitchen, laundry, bathrooms all interior rooms.
Nothing below ground or grade. Garage, laundry, family room …all above ground/walk out.
The most exposed – and even that really even isn’t that much at risk…is:
- a spigot in the garage (the pipe for that runs from a neighboring powder room)
- That powder room is next to and behind the front steps so no exterior wall pipes there either
I’m pretty sure heat set at 55, and insulating pipes (that I can get to) with either the foam tube wrap-arounds, or insulation tape will be fine.
You can also place a light bulb in an area that may be prone to getting too cold such as under a cabinet. This will keep it heated enough to not freeze.
I was going to suggest this, too. An incandescent light bulb can heat up a small area rather well. Unfortunately, they're getting hard to find. If you can find some--stock up!
Insulating the pipes will help a lot. When we lived up North we set ours down to 50 degrees and never had an issue. We also opened the bottom cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom vanities to insure that the heat would get to them. Idk if this was really useful, but since we never had an issue we just kept doing it. Best wishes.
I don't think anyone on a forum can answer for a generic row home because each home has different characteristics. We've never had a problem with 50 degrees, but if your thermostat is in a room warmed by the sun, it might be cold in some other place.
The idea of trying to squeeze the maximum possible savings out of the heat bill on a home with no cameras and no periodic checks seems penny-wise and pound foolish.
Our system has a photocell that measures if the flame on the oil burner goes off. Sometimes during cycles it fails to turn on regardless of the thermostat setting. If someone is in the house they can reset the system. In general it is obvious that it is smart to have a house looked at once in a while.
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