Turn off the water inside your house before you leave! Some people I know left for a week’s vacation and did not turn the water off inside their home. Fortunately, they were having some work done to the house while they were gone, and I met the plumbers at the house one morning to find water all over the basement floor!
In this particular case, it was a water line between the floor of the first level of the house and the ceiling in the basement that had sprung a leak. If I hadn’t been out there to let the workers in, the damage may have been much worse.
As it was, there was still significant cost to having the basement carpets dried out, new padding under the carpet put in, repairing sheetrock in the ceiling and repainting, etc.
So, next time you are going to be gone for a period of time, turn off the water!
