My wife and I spend our Winters down south.
We’ve been enjoying the retired life for the past five years. Spending the winters down south is great for my body and mind. My wife also enjoys the warmer temperatures during December, January, and February. Before we leave that house each winter, we have a checklist of services and chores that need to be performed. A tuneup on the furnace is always a good idea, even if we aren’t going to spend the whole winter in the house. There are extremely cold temperatures, ice, and snow during the winter months. When my wife and I leave the house for multiple weeks at a time, we set the temperature on the smart thermostat to 50°. The furnace only comes on if the house is extremely cold and frigid. The heat is necessary, because it keeps the pipes in the house from freezing. If the water pipes freeze, they can crack and break and that leads to flooding. Last year we had the smart thermostat installed and it has helped to decrease some of the anxiety that we feel each time we leave the house for an extended period. The smart thermostat allows us to check on the temperatures in the house even if we aren’t home at the time. It really is a great piece of mind when the two of us are more than a thousand miles away from our home. One time we came home from being down south and there was a small leak in the kitchen. The floor was flooded and we had to replace the tile in the kitchen as well as the cabinetry. After that problem, we purchased the smart thermostat.