Brandon Nelson
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This Is What Friends Are For!
Last month, we took a family vacation out of town. We locked up the house, set a few lights on timers, and turned down the thermostats on the the furnace and water heater. Basic stuff.
Our house is less than 2 years old, so we don’t spend a lot of time worrying about things going wrong with it, i.e. mechanical breakdowns, leaks, stuff like that.
But on our 1st full day gone, our friend Ruth called with an alarming message: The kitchen floor was flooded, and water was starting to leak through the downstairs ceiling! Yikes!
We’d hired Ruth to come by and clean the house while we were away, and THANK GOODNESS for that. We’ve left home countless time in the past without arranging for anyone to drop by. Her visit while we were away was purely coincidence, really, and sheer good luck!
Ruth identified the leak as coming from under the kitchen sink, so she shut the valves off there and mopped up the mess, then called us.
The next day, another friend (and contractor), Eric, dropped by to assess the damage and pinpoint the leak. We’d gotten off easy: only some paint blistering on the downstairs ceiling and heating duct chase. And the leak, it turned out, was due to a loose air-gap fitting for the dishwasher, which was still running when we left the house on our trip.
Had Ruth not gone by less than 24 hours after our departure, the water would’ve soaked into the flooring, framing and sheetrock for nearly a week, and caused a lot more damage!
My point is this: If you’re going away for even just a few days, and you have a neighbor or a friend who you could exchange drop-bys with, DO IT! Just have them drop by your house and run through it, looking for trouble. It doesn’t need to take longer than 5 minutes, if that. Have them make sure there are no leaks, broken windows, funny smells, damaged roofing from branches or trees, or anything unusual.
It’ll make it easier for you to relax during your trip, and if some mishap does occur and your friend can catch it early enough, you may save yourself a lot of money and material cost for the repair.
