Water damage is an extremely common, yet destructive form of home damage that can occur for a wide variety of reasons. Whether caused by environmental factors, damage to the roof, foundation, or another part of your home's structure, or even something as simple as a burst pipe, ruined furniture and mold growth can be expensive to fix.

This concern is compounded for vacation homes, since someone is not always present to ensure that potential problems are fixed before they can result in destructive and expensive damage. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to help mitigate the risk of any water damage occurring to your vacation home in the off-season.

Perform Regular Inspections

The most important thing that you should do to reduce the risk of water damage occurring in your vacation home while you're not there is to have the roof and the plumbing systems inspected twice a year: once when you're about to pack it up for the winter, and once again right before you're about to move back in. This allows you to find any potential issues in these two areas of your home early so that you can address them before any water damage or critical failures related to either system occurs.

Turn the Water Off

Beyond making sure that your plumbing system is working properly, you can also turn the main water supply off to your plumbing to ensure that if a leak or break does occur, the water damage will be kept at a minimum. The water main for your vacation home can usually be found in the basement, and can be turned off by hand simply by turning it counterclockwise. Individual supply valves to water using appliances and fixtures (like toilets, washing machines, and the like) can also be turned off if you don't want to completely turn the water off, but still want to reduce the risk of damage.

Install Cameras

Another fairly straightforward thing that you can do to help reduce the risk and severity of water damage in your vacation home is a set of interior cameras that can be turned on and off remotely. These cameras can be checked on periodically from wherever you are during the rest of the year in order to make sure that no water damage (or for that matter, any other type of damage) has occurred – and so that you can contact a professional from companies like Redeeming Restoration to come in and address any damage that has occurred. 

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