How to avoid frozen pipes while away in winter

[JamesEB]

I'm going tomorrow. What shall I do?

 

[denso13]

Turn the water off and drain everything down.

 

[Scarum]

Heating on and set thermostat above 5 degrees. Open loft hatch.

 

[DaveHerns]

Times must be hard if you go on holiday and have to factor in the cost of the gas you'll save while away from home. It'll prove to be a false economy if you come back to frozen pipes. Too many claims for burst pipes and your insurers will refuse cover or impose terms

 

[gigz]

Take them with you .
Set your room stat to 10 degrees. This will be high enough so it won't be on a lot, but well low enough to kick in if it gets anywhere near freezing. P.S. Its supposed to be mild this xmastime.

 

[JamesEB]

Times must be hard if you go on holiday and have to factor in the cost of the gas you'll save while away from home. It'll prove to be a false economy if you come back to frozen pipes. Too many claims for burst pipes and your insurers will refuse cover or impose terms

I haven't said anything about wanting to save the cost of gas while on holiday. I wanted to find out the correct thing to do. I said that I had the central heating on for both the floods I had.

JamesEB

 

[dpgas]

Yes but from what we can gather the bursts were in the loft and most likely as the loft is insulated it's like an outside space.

Leave heating on low and hw on for an hour per day but leave the loft hatches open and the heat will rise preventing the pipes in the loft from freezing.

 

[adamas]

I have the same doubt. I have a combi boiler (Heatline Vizo 24) and tomorrow I'm leaving for about 4 weeks.
I don't know if it's better to keep the boiler constantly on with the CH dial set to the minimum (the plant doesn't have any thermostat, I can regulate just the dial on the boiler) or use the timer and turn it on 2-3 hours every day with the normal temperature setting I use when I am at home.
So far the temperature has been really mild (I live in Bristol, now the low temperature is always above 10 C), hopefully there won't be severe freezing spells.

Besides, the boiler pressure seems to be slowly decreasing over time. An engineer changed the reservoir membrane recently because of this issue. The pressure was then set to 1.5bar, but over 10 days it fell below 1bar and the boiler didn't start anymore (I manually repressurized it). I don't know if I am using it in the wrong way. So far I have been turning it on just when I'm at home, that is 1-2 hours in the morning and 5-6 hours in the evening. Then I turn it off for the night or during the day when I am out. Should instead, during these times, keep it switched on but regulating the dial to the minimum temperature setting? Would this help in preventing the slow pressure drop instead of the continuous on/off?

 

[londoner1]

Difficult to say whats going on.

My boiler is in a back building which is subject to low temps in winter.

It has a honeywell pipe frost stat (set low) and a room stat (set at 0, should be 5c), over the years i have fine tuned it so it will come on automatically if freeze sets in for 15mins so as to prevent freezing. During the harsh winter nights the boiler would come on automatically thus heating the rads and pipes.

 

[JamesEB]

Yes but from what we can gather the bursts were in the loft and most likely as the loft is insulated it's like an outside space.

Leave heating on low and hw on for an hour per day but leave the loft hatches open and the heat will rise preventing the pipes in the loft from freezing.

Thanks and yes. My concerns were not at all about saving gas but about not having any more burst pipes,

Thanks for help
JamesEB

 

[JamesEB]

Thanks everybody for invaluable help.

But, you've all put me off so much I decided not to go abroad and to stay home with the pipes.

Thanks again
JamesEB