Winterizing a Lake or Seasonal Home

[frogprin01]

Thinking of making an offer on a lake front home today. The house would be mainly used in the spring, summer and fall. Thinking ahead.......the temperatures do get down to around 0ºF there in the winter. The house is heated and cooled with mini-splits. The water is supplied by a well.

For those that have seasonal homes, do you try to winterize the home before winter by draining the supply lines and adding antifreeze to the drains and then turn the heat off, or do you leave the heat on all winter to around 50 or 55ºF so the pipes don't freeze? The house does have a water softener, and I'm not sure how I'd be able to drain the fiberglass tanks.

Since our cottage is not insulated we do the former. It does not take that long. I recommend putting a detailed SOP together for opening and closing to ensure each step is completed. The SOP is also very useful if you decide to hire the opening and closing out.

 

[folly]

Everyone covered pipes but I wanted to warn you about a few other things we ran into. if you have a boat you must winterize it. We have had 2 cracked blocks. Both were winterized but I guess just not good enough. Finding someone to do a lot of this "winterizing" is an issue. There is limited workforce so be prepared to do a lot of the work yourself. We also had 2 TV that would turn on, appeared to work, but not connect to the internet after being cold all winter. On the outside of our place we had a lot of stamped concrete. It has not held up well where the snow hits it. The biggest issue is not having access to a labor force.

 

[pb4uski]

Can someone describe the blow out process?

In the case of the family camp I turn off the water where it comes into the house, remove a cap on the valve where it comes into the building, then put a shop vac on exhaust on an opened outside hose spigot, then open all faucets, let the air blow the water out of the pipes and let it run for about 5 minutes then replace the cap on the valve. I also remove the kitchen faucet sprayer head and leave the faucets open so if there is some residual water that freezes that it has room to expand without busting a pipe.

 

[indiajust]

many seasonals in NH have a outside spigot at the low point entry to structure. Plumbing designed to gravity drain entire house and well line passively. Walmart has sales on marine antifreeze for traps that is a good reminder.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

I live in Minnesota and have had a couple seasonal homes. I was always well prepared for a cold house except. The kitchen sprayer will get ya....I learned. Twice.