I’m sure there are differences between insurance companies - but when people say things like " a lot of time on the road" or “winter vacation”, they can mean very different things - and those differences may have an affect on insurance coverage. Now you said you spend a lot of time "on the road’ . In context, I am going to assume that you don’t mean you spend the day driving from places to place but return every night. But I have heard people use that phrase to mean :
I leave my house for a work assignment every Monday and return every Friday and am never away for more than five consecutive days except when I take my actual vacation. This means the house will never be unoccupied for more than 30 consecutive days*
I spend a lot of time traveling (at least 2-3 weeks a month) and I don’t always come home on the weekends.
Now in example 1, you might be away for 250 days per year ( 5 days x 50 weeks ). Maybe 264 days if you take 2 weeks of vacation away from home. I would not expect an insurance company to treat this situation the same as someone who leaves a house unoccupied while he takes an 8 month work assignment 1000 miles away. Even though both situations involve roughly the same amount of time away from home, the risks to the insurance company are different - a window left broken for month or more encourages vandalism/squatting in a way that a window fixed in a couple of days doesn’t.
And “unoccupied” is what the insurance company is concerned with for this purpose- if you have someone house-sitting, it’s not unoccupied.
Aren’t most townhomes laid out so the kitchen, dining room, living room, one bathroom. etc are on the ground floor and the second floor is the bedrooms and most bathrooms? I haven’t seen one where the kitchen is on the second floor. But I’m sheltered
Very much depends on where you live and what you count as a floor- which floor is at the top of the steps in this photo? I’ve seen people who use the whole house call that the second floor while those who rent out the ground level call it the second floor. But anyway there’s a style of house around here where the ground floor consists of a garage and an entryway and the entire living unit is on the second floor - so you refrigerator would be a floor above the entry.
No, what I meant is I lived in Mexico for a year, Canada for a year, Mexico again for a year and a half, and China for five years. In all cases I continued to pay Michigan income taxes (although it wasn’t required) so that I could maintain my homestead exemption, which was good enough for AAA to deem that the house wasn’t unoccupied.
The advice for the homestead exemption was provided by company lawyer, since I wasn’t claiming homestead elsewhere.
My little story: I used to live in a big city, in an older house I rented. We had a toilet whose mechanism would get stuck, so you had to wiggle the handle to get it to stop blasting water through the tank and bowl. I had two guests arrive in town, and we headed out for a 3-day road trip.
You guessed it: one of our guests ran back into the house to visit the john just as we were leaving, and came back out and joined us in the car, and we drove off. She wasn’t aware of the stuck toilet. None of us thought about it either. It ran for 3 days straight. I had a $800 water bill that month, about 10x the usual amount. Argh.
>> washing machine hoses
I should look into these at my house ASAP, thanks for the info.
>> shut off water when you go on vacation
Extremely good idea. Out where I live now, I’ve got a well with an electric pump, coupled to a pressure tank. I believe I can just flick a switch, and the pressure tank, which controls the well pump, will not refill the tank anymore. So any leaks in the house would be short lived, no more than a few gallons, after which there isn’t enough pressure to move the water uphill. So…I need to find that switch and verify that it works.
I live on a hill; on my side of the street, it’s three stories in front & two in back. My first floor is foyer, garage, & basement. The ‘awake’ living areas (LR, DR, den, & kitchen) are on 2nd floor, the ‘sleep’ living areas (bedrooms) are on 3rd floor.
Across the street houses are two stories in front but with walkout basements in the back.
Our 2nd floor toilet’s fill valve malfunctioned once while we were out for the evening. Coincidentally, the overflow tube wasn’t the correct height, and the toilet tank kept on filling and overflowing. We returned home to water dripping down through the basement ceiling. :mad:
We have well water, too. Every time we go on vacation, I shut off the well pump. The well pump is operated by a switch (like a light switch) right next to the pressure tank. We leave a big note on the counter to remind us to turn the water back on when we get home.
We also have two valves (hot and cold) for the washing machine, which is on the second floor. Unless the washer is being used, they are always shut off.
My uncle had a washer hose burst while he was out for the afternoon, and the insurance company tried to deny coverage stating he should have turned off the water. He fought that successfully (as it is ridiculous) but since then, I always turn it off during a long trip.
Well, just last wednesday the cutoff valve for the toilet exploded off.
No-one near the loo. It had not been used in about 5 hours time. No-one on the premises was using the water system in any way. The fitting had worked perfectly for the last… 23 years?
The thread simply fractured and the whole unit popped off.
Water everywhere, flowrate of about a gallon per 5 seconds.
Fortunately I was at home, heard the bang, and immediately investigated. Saw the wave heading to me and ran to the house cutoff.
30 Seconds of water, thus the damage was limited to only bathroom + 2 rooms flooded.
So, YEAH I turn off water if I leave the house for an extended time.
If 30 seconds of leak can flood 3 rooms, then 2 weeks of leak during vacation will carve the Grand Canyon.
I just read the fine print on mine – 60 days is the max. Unoccupied more than that and my insurance is void.
This is a really pertinent thread for me. I got home day Wednesday and the dogs were agitated. As I was schlumping around, they ran into the kitchen and started barking at the fridge. I followed to discover the ice-maker line had split and was spraying water everywhere. It had apparently just happened, the puddle forming wasn’t large, and so far the carpet (adjoining room) was still dry. When I tried to shut off the valve for the icemaker line, it wouldn’t close. Finally I trotted out to the street and shut off the main. FWIW: I have the tool that fits it since we shut off the water for trips.
Spent yesterday morning with a plumber and learned something about the valve in the box at the street. Since it is “upstream” of the meter, it belongs to the water company and homeowners are not supposed to be using it. He told a few horror stories of homeowners breaking the shutoff valve and being charged thousands for the city to fix it (they have to shutoff water to the street, apparently).
So I had a new shutoff valve installed on my side of the meter, along with a new pressure reduction thingie. And the dogs are getting steak tonight.
Your house had no one living in it for 5 years and your insurance company knew it and didn’t charge you the higher rate for an unoccupied house? I’m surprised - and if I were you I’d check my actual policy , because deeming it “occupied” just because you are continuing to pay income tax doesn’t sound like something an insurance company would do. I mean, the risk of an empty house being vandalized doesn’t go away because you pay income taxes.
*because although I may not have been clear earlier, you can of course insure an unoccupied or vacant house. It’s not the typical homeowner’s policy and it costs more, but you can do it.
Just this morning when I went to the refrigerator, I heard a hissing coming from behind it. At first I was worried that the 25 year old refrig sprung a Freon leak, but nope. The water pipe behind the wall developed a pinhole leak. Lucky we caught it before it had gone too long. No drywall damage beyond what I had to cut away to get at it.
Happened to me too, the leak somehow went undetected though (it was the filter cartridge behind the fridge that fed the water line into the freezer) until the entire kitchen laminate floor started oozing water, and it soaked the baseboards and climbed up the walls and nurtured a mold colony behind the fridge. WTH? it was summer usually damp in our basement kitchen, well it’s a walk out with living area on the bottom. Old cottage so we were used to dampness in the summer with pipes sweating out and all. But once the leak was found the kitchen was essentially demolished, lost lower cupboards parts of drywall, had to vacate the kitchen while it was dehumidifed and dried out for a week. Then had to get new flooring cupboards, repair the walls etc etc. Insurance covered it all! but then we started getting frequent calls from an adjustor/investigator who wanted us to walk him through the incident and sign a statement this that and the other. He worked for the “other guy” and GD if they ddidn’t want to try to walk back the claim and shift blame. Finally got them off our backs.
