water in an empty house

[AInightingale]

My mum moved recently into a development for elderly people with dementia and her house is empty. Just been talking to the insurer who told me that for the policy to be valid we have to turn the water off at the stopcock, and drain the tank (?!). We have a lot of clearing and cleaning to do and will need to make tea, use the bathroom, mop floors etc. Is there really any need to drain the tank to nothing, won't that be the biggest faff if we do need water? I could understand if we were putting heating on or something, but we won't be doing that for a while.

If your house floods before you've moved in then no you're not insured

Surely if you are there and doing stuff, the house isn't empty yet?

It's very unlikely to flood but my house did flood years ago whilst the bathroom was being renovated and the water hadn't been turned off at the mains so when a cap thing popped if and water flooded the street the neighbours called the fire brigade who in turn jammies the windows open downstairs to get in to sort it out

Now that the mains water thingy is on the street they could have turned it off there but it wasn't installed back then

No you have to be properly living there

Surely the tank will be full of rank stagnant water anyway so you'd want to empty it and fill it afresh once you move in

We are trying to call in a few days a week to clear stuff, but no-one is living there. If something started to leak then it would be a couple of days before anyone would catch on. I suppose it's just to cover us if a pipe suddenly started to leak. I was just wondering whether it was necessary to completely drain the tank and have to keep switching the water on and off every time we are there.

When my dad's house was empty, his insurance company just told me to visit the property once a week and didn't mention turning the water off at all.

It was also a condition that we kept the house heated to 10 degrees or similar too, from October - March, so turning the water off wouldn't even have been an option.

I would have thought so too @CellophaneFlower .If we still have the house in the winter, the heat/water will need to be on occasionally to prevent pipe freezes in really cold weather, presumably.

It's all a bit new to me and I've never considered the maintenance of an empty house before really!

The heating is so the pipes will not freeze and burst

If those are the terms of your insurance, those are the terms. When we were selling our vacant house, we had to turn off the water, although we left the electric on for security lights.

we didn’t have a cold water tank, though.

@AInightingale
You could have a look at the plumbing setup by tracing the pipes
The water will normally be a direct connection to the sink and another to the water tank
The system may be fitted with valves which cut the water off from the tank and will allow you to still have water at the sink

Having a plumber in to fit valves and explain how to drain down the tanks and rads may be the easy cheaper option rather than paying to heat an empty house.

Thanks @AnSolas.

Yes, of course. Always good to keep an empty house heated to a minimum too in winter to avoid mould. I get it's not possible if OP's mum's insurance won't allow it though. My dad's was Direct Line and they were really good.

His water company were great too. Stopped billing us for water (unmetered) for 9 months until it was sold, but said it was fine to use the water whilst there - as long as we didn't take advantage and fill a shark tank!

I'd be worried about legionella so yes I'd drain the tank. My ILs have a holiday cottage and when they're not there they always drain the tank, think that's more about the flooding as they've had issues before with cracked pipes.

Yes this. That’s what I thought needed to happen to validate insurance etc.

Strange - our house was empty for couple of months before we moved in and we weren’t told to do that stuff. Has it been empty for a long time maybe?

Sorry @AInightingale I got the wrong end of the stick. She will be leaving her house empty. I would do the cleaning you mention and then do as they say.

It will depend on the insurance policy, unoccupancy is usually defined as 30 nights away from the property

When my DM was in hospital for 3 months, we left the heating on and visited every week when we were also visiting DM in hospital. Once she died we had to get insurance for an empty/unoccupied property. The condition of this was that all water systems were drained and the water turned off at the mains. We had to travel from 75 miles away to clear the house out but no water meant no toilets. Thankfully the very kind NDN allowed us to use his and made up cups of tea. Otherwise we had to rely on going to a local cafe to use the toilet. We didn't do any actual cleaning as the house was being sold as 'in need of renovation ' so was going to become a building site.

It really all seems to depend on the insurance company and their terms then, there are so many variations in the replies! Thx.

This. If there is contents in it and you're coming and going it's not yet classed as "empty". When you're done, turn off the stopcock.

Most standard household insurance policies only allow properties to be unoccupied for up to 30 or 60 days at a time. I would imagine that occupied means someone staying there not just visiting.