Forecast for Mesa is 117 degrees all week. I've never lived where it gets that hot for that long. When I left our place on Thursday I shut off the AC and locked everything up. Now I am wondering if that was such a good idea.

What happens to household goods when they get that hot? We don't have any candles, but will the refrigerator work? What happens to food? What else should I know about?

A remote thermostat might be a good idea, not just for A/C but also for when AZ gets one of their (infrequent) weeks of 20 degree weather. I know about the NEST, but I see I can also get one from my cable provider - Cox. So far I'm not impressed with Cox but haven't had them very long and perhaps they deserve a chance.

I know the NEST works but it's complex enough that I wonder if guests will be able to figure it out. Any have experience with these?

Ask Mary Anna to ask Muffin's Sister.

Personally, I'd leave the A/C on at 85. Aside from damage issues, if it gets too hot in the house, it will take forever to cool it off.

We've left houses in the summer, with all the power off. Candles will melt. Hopefully you didn't leave any food out, because that will rot. Fortunately, if you're gone long enough it will rot then dry out, so you're likely to miss any stinky stuff. No worries about pipes freezing, obviously.

The only issue has to do with power outages in the summer in AZ, generally driven by monsoon storms. But again, since you're not there the only issue will be with items in your refrigerator and/or freezer and since you're not there to open the doors they should be fine unless there's a (highly unlikely) long outage, as in 24 hours or more. You should occasionally monitor, because if items in your freezer thawed and spoiled, you won't know because unless they power is still off when you return they will have refrozen and look just fine.

The only problems I've ever heard of are when people didn't realize that something had been left out (like a decorative bowl of oranges in the living room or something, candy bar hidden in the nightstand, etc.) Then the problem is just cleanup. No structural problems.

If you do leave the A/C on, my personal belief is that 85 is too cool. That's almost comfy. I'd aim for 95 or so--and only then if you're planning on coming back within, say, a week and you don't want to spend 8 hours waiting for your house to cool back down to a liveable temp. If you have a nest or other smart thermostat, you can jack that baby down a few hours before you arrive and it will be nice when you open the door.

Obviously, no pets left behind, even outdoors with shade and water.

Both the NEST and Honeywell apps. get terrible reviews starting about 2 months ago. They were fine before that.

Anyone use them?

We have the Honeywell app. It's not been perfect. It's had a few outages of a day or so over the past year, but the thermostat itself was working fine. I think the last outage I can recall was maybe in February? The outage was the internet link that allows you to log on remotely and turn your system on/off or change the schedule or target temp.

Overall I've been pleased with ours. The outages are a pain, to be sure. But so far my experience has been positive, and I to love being able to change the settings remotely. I use it every time we travel.

How long will you be gone? If quite a while I'd make sure the fresh food part of the fridge is empty except for condiments, etc.

We just got back from less than a week away and I turned the A/C off. I probably should have left the fan running as the house smelled a bit musty when we came back.

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because if items in your freezer thawed and spoiled, you won't know because unless they power is still off when you return they will have refrozen

I saw a clever thing in one of those life-hacking articles. Fill a coffee cup or something like that half-way with water. Put it in the freezer and let it freeze solid. Then put a quarter on top of the ice. If your power goes out, after it comes back on, check the cup. If the quarter is at the bottom of the ice, it thawed and re-froze.