Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post - Tips for preparing to leave your stick house

Mrs. CountryGuy · 12-05-2006, 02:06 AM

Whoooohooooo

Thanks Admin and all our supporters and our MAIN man that started this idea!! Thanks RKassl !!

OK, Joyce, do you have that list printed up, computer something or other, so that we could all look at it, and add suggestions. I like Judy's idea of having one here at MOC, like our PDI list!!

So, here are a few things we do:

1.) Have mail forwarded or held, depending on how long we will be gone and if we are staying in one place for a while. I personally have found our post mistress very helpful in this arena.

2.) Stop or suspend any service you can, we live in the boonies, and have to pay for our own garbage service, we suspend, must be gone more than a month to do so, but saves $$. Suspend full coverage on the car left home, why pay insurance on it for 2 to 4 months. This saves us a lot of coin. Have suspended the phone service, but was not real thrilled with this, current plan is to have that number ported to a new cell phone with a company that covers the Irish Hills (bad service out here in the boonies)

3.) Turn off refrigerator, if you have more than one, shut em all off. Clean out well, wash down, etc. Leave doors open for a few hours to get all moisture out and dried up and then stuff with newspapers (crunched up) and close doors. When you get home, they will have no mold or smells, but you MUST allow them to dry out well before newspaper and closing doors, you don't need to ask why I know, do you??

4.) Turn heat down to 45 in winter, air conditioning up to about 80 during the summer. Saves a ton of coin.

5.) Winterize your water system in your stick built, just like you would with your rig. Turn off pump, or whatever (we live with a well), drain, open all the faucets, get water out of the toilets (my personal favorite, NOT!, but must be done). Now, when all the water is drained off, run some RV pink through the dishwasher and washing machine, just dump in a bit, run them on the spin or drain cycle, just a little, turn off. Dump pink in the drains, and in the toilets, flush so you get some pink down the toilet drains. (In summer you might consider draining your hot water heater and turning off feeds to the washer. This gets a maintenance item done on the water heater and if those feeds break you won't be happy with the flooding, ick)

6.) Remove ALL PEPPERMINT candies from the premises. Contrary to the beliefs of some, I can promise and guarantee that mice love them! You don't want to know how ugly it was, or how long I found evidence.

7.) If you have someone who lives close and can check your house frequently and feed the cat, OWN ONE!! A house cat. Then you might be able to leave the peppermint candies at home!

12-05-2006, 02:06 AM	#3
Mrs. CountryGuy Montana Master Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: _ Posts: 5,238 M.O.C. #6337	Whoooohooooo Thanks Admin and all our supporters and our MAIN man that started this idea!! Thanks RKassl !! OK, Joyce, do you have that list printed up, computer something or other, so that we could all look at it, and add suggestions. I like Judy's idea of having one here at MOC, like our PDI list!! So, here are a few things we do: 1.) Have mail forwarded or held, depending on how long we will be gone and if we are staying in one place for a while. I personally have found our post mistress very helpful in this arena. 2.) Stop or suspend any service you can, we live in the boonies, and have to pay for our own garbage service, we suspend, must be gone more than a month to do so, but saves $$. Suspend full coverage on the car left home, why pay insurance on it for 2 to 4 months. This saves us a lot of coin. Have suspended the phone service, but was not real thrilled with this, current plan is to have that number ported to a new cell phone with a company that covers the Irish Hills (bad service out here in the boonies) 3.) Turn off refrigerator, if you have more than one, shut em all off. Clean out well, wash down, etc. Leave doors open for a few hours to get all moisture out and dried up and then stuff with newspapers (crunched up) and close doors. When you get home, they will have no mold or smells, but you MUST allow them to dry out well before newspaper and closing doors, you don't need to ask why I know, do you?? 4.) Turn heat down to 45 in winter, air conditioning up to about 80 during the summer. Saves a ton of coin. 5.) Winterize your water system in your stick built, just like you would with your rig. Turn off pump, or whatever (we live with a well), drain, open all the faucets, get water out of the toilets (my personal favorite, NOT!, but must be done). Now, when all the water is drained off, run some RV pink through the dishwasher and washing machine, just dump in a bit, run them on the spin or drain cycle, just a little, turn off. Dump pink in the drains, and in the toilets, flush so you get some pink down the toilet drains. (In summer you might consider draining your hot water heater and turning off feeds to the washer. This gets a maintenance item done on the water heater and if those feeds break you won't be happy with the flooding, ick) 6.) Remove ALL PEPPERMINT candies from the premises. Contrary to the beliefs of some, I can promise and guarantee that mice love them! You don't want to know how ugly it was, or how long I found evidence. 7.) If you have someone who lives close and can check your house frequently and feed the cat, OWN ONE!! A house cat. Then you might be able to leave the peppermint candies at home!