I have recently acquired a job requiring me to go house to house over a fairly large territory. Among the many and varied things I have seen (most of which I will not relate) are notices saying, more or less, “This house has been winterized”.
Well, what exactly does THAT mean?
For further information, I’m seeing these in northwest Indiana and they aren’t summer homes or some such, they’re houses and/or multi-unit buildings intended as a primary residence but vacant (in many cases due to foreclosure, but the exact reason is not always obvious). Some of the notices include cautions about anit-freeze in toilets and drains (makes sense in this climate) and not to use the plumbing.
Anyone know what’s involved in winterizing and, presumably, de-winterizing a vacant property?
Winterizing is to be sure the plumbing doesn’t get destroyed basically. Water pipes are drained and all plumbing fixtures get antifreeze dump in the drain. Sometimes water pipes are flushed with antifreeze, but that’s not the usual practice, that’s more an RV practice. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more things have been done, but plumbing is the big item.
To use the plumbing turn on the water, and flush out the lines and drains. Turn on the water heater when the plumbing is alright. Clean the antifreeze scum out of the fixtures. It’s a different antifreeze than your automobile. You won’t be in trouble flushing it into the sewer.
You can winterize by allowing the inside temperature to get low (40s or 50s F) or by turning the heat totally off. I’ll assume that this case is where the heat is shut off. So you basically want to protect things from freezing. (Which you already know.) I had to step away from my write-up for a moment and hopefully you won’t mind a bit of repeat of that Harmonious Discord wrote.
Drains are OK except for water in sink and toilet traps. That’s where pouring some anti-freeze into toilets and sinks will help.
The water lines are different. You want to shut off the water where it comes into the house. (I also assume that this is a place on city water instead of a well.) The lines then need to be drained. Some places have a valve at the low point that can be opened allowing the system to drain. Otherwise they need to be blown out with compressed air and I don’t know how that is handled. Leave the faucets open.
The water heater will need to be turned off (electric switch or turn off the gas) and partially drained. Leaving some water in the tank is OK as long as there is room for the ice to expand into. (I think. That’s what we did when winterizing the summer trailer home in years past. If someone else comes along and says drain it fully, I would not argue.) Check for other items that contain water, such as a water softener. If there is an outside sprinkler, this gets shut off and blown out too.
Make sure the furnace is shut off. The ones I’ve seen all have a separate switch for the fan. Turn this off and also turn off the gas, both at the furnace and where it comes into the house.
Another good idea is to keep doors to rooms open. This allows circulation of air and prevents one part of the house from getting disproportionately warm due to sunshine effects.
As for restarting, the first step is to turn on the gas and make sure that all of the pilot lights are lit. I think that in some areas the gas company has to relight pilot lights to ensure safety. Make sure the furnace can start again as well.
As for water, keep the taps open and slowly turn the main valve on again. (If you’ve drained the water heater, make sure the drain valve is closed.) After the air is bled out of the lines and you have a good flow of water, turn the taps off at the sinks and tub.
I think that’s pretty much it.
Actually, it’s not safe to assume that in my area, as quite a few people (including me) still have well and septic. I assume, however, that with well and septic one shuts off the well pump and then drains the relevant water lines, although the well and pump system might need something done to them. Likewise, you’d need to use a septic-safe antifreeze, but presumably they have those.
Have to wonder about sump-pumps as well, which are common as dirt around here - if you shut the power off then they don’t work (of course) but then you’d get water in a basement or crawl space. How is that handled/prevented?
As far as the pipes freezing, could you not just leave one faucet dripping a bit so the water still flows to prevent the problem?
Maybe where you are in Pennsylvania, but up here we can get sub-zero weather for days on end. Even homes with the heat on can have pipes freeze. A small dripping of water won’t guarantee ice-free plumbing.
Bad idea. Dripping won’t keep the water from freezing in the sink or the water pipes and adds up to a lot of wasted water and a bad septic system. You have to have electricity and a working pump to pump water and you might as well heat the house too. Winterizing the house means your house is safe from water problems flooding it and causing flood damage that can total the house. My brothers have seen a new house on city water with a flooded basement and water leaving the house above the basement level. This was a frozen pipe problem, because the water shouldn’t have been turned on yet. Nobody lived there at the time it was a house being constructed on speculation that somebody would buy it.
Interesting. Around we used ‘winterizing’ to mean a one-time renovation that transformed a cottage into a house that could be lived in full-time, including through the winter.