Vacation Shutdown: What to Do With Your Water Heater Before You Travel
A water heater left running in an empty house is a leak waiting for an audience. A few minutes before you leave prevents the worst version of that story.
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The leak argument
Most water-heater floods happen when nobody is home to notice the first drip. A tank that leaks on day one of a two-week trip does two weeks of damage; the same leak noticed on day one at home does an afternoon of mopping. Vacation preparation is mostly about limiting how long a leak can run unseen.
What to do before you leave
For trips of a few days, set the heater to vacation mode if it has one, or turn the thermostat down — this saves energy and reduces pressure cycling. For longer trips, consider shutting the water supply to the heater (and, for electric units, switching the heater circuit off; for gas, following the manufacturer's shutdown instructions). Never drain a tank and then restore power to it dry — that destroys electric elements in seconds.
Gas, electric, and tankless differences
Gas units: use vacation mode or the manufacturer's pilot instructions; do not improvise gas shutoffs. Electric units: power off only after confirming the tank is full, and power on only after confirming it is full again on return. Tankless units: vacation mode or power off per the manual, and check the condensate line on return in winter.
On your return
Check around the heater for any dampness before restoring full operation, run a hot tap and confirm normal temperature and pressure, and look at the relief-valve discharge pipe for any sign it opened while you were away. If anything looks off — damp floor, rust streaks, a tripped breaker — call before running the heater hard.