The house does not
need water while you are gone.
A drip you would notice on a Tuesday becomes a ceiling by Sunday if the house is empty. The prevention is dull, which is why it works.
If you will be gone more than a few days, close the main shutoff after you have used the water you need. A supply line that lets go at noon does nothing if the valve above it is already closed. Leave a note on the valve so the person watering plants does not open it and walk away. Irrigation can stay on its own valve if that valve is actually separate. Many are not. Check.
The heater and the washer
A water heater left heating an empty or leaking tank is a second problem. If you know the gas cock or the breaker, and you are comfortable with it, shut that too when the trip is long. Do not extinguish a pilot you do not know how to relight unless someone will be there who does. Washing-machine hoses are a common failure in an empty house. If the machine will not be used, close the two valves behind it. They exist for this.
None of this replaces a person who can walk in. If the house will sit for weeks, leave a key with someone who knows where the shutoff is and has the number 818-631-7296. A smart leak sensor is useful if it can close a valve or reach a phone. A sensor that emails an empty inbox is a diary.
The things that run while you are gone
An ice maker, a reverse-osmosis unit, and a toilet with a tired flapper all use water in an empty house. The toilet is the classic one: a flapper that almost seals will run for days into the bowl, and if the fill valve sticks open it can overflow a tank. Close the angle stop on any toilet you do not trust, or close the main and be done. Turn the ice maker off if you can do it without pulling the machine out in a hurry. If a refrigerator line has its own valve, that valve is worth closing. Those plastic lines fail in the cabinet and the water has a week to find the subfloor.
Los Angeles does not give you a frozen-pipe season to plan around. It gives you vacant days, a washing-machine hose, a water heater, and sometimes a neighbor’s irrigation that is actually teed off your line. Absence is the risk. A house that is used every day reveals a leak while it is still a towel. A house with the lights on a timer does not.
Who can walk in
Leave one person who can enter, who knows which valve you closed, and who will call 818-631-7296 rather than experiment. Tell them whether the heater was shut down and whether the pilot should be relit by us rather than by them. If you have a leak sensor, test that it reaches a phone that is not sitting on the kitchen counter of the empty house. A sensor that only sounds inside the kitchen is a smoke alarm for water, heard by nobody.
If you come home to a stain, do not turn the main wide open and walk away to unpack. Open it partway, walk the rooms, look under the sinks and at the heater pan, then decide. The trip home is the one time people restore every drop at once and discover the failure in the second hour.
Related service: Water heaters. For the visit itself, call 818-631-7296 or send the address.