Winterizing a Home that is Left Empty for the Winter

June 2, 2022 12:36 PM

I inherited property in northern Michigan from my father recently. It is occupied during the warm months but is empty in the winter. Last winter, I kept the thermostat at 40 degrees. I have a propane tank for the furnace and a water pump because we get water from a well. I have to keep the driveway plowed if I want to run the heat all winter because the tank has to filled a couple of times each winter. Keeping the house heated is a big waste of fuel and money. I don't like doing that. My question is: if I make sure the pipes and the water heater are emptied of all water, will it harm anything if I let the house go without heat for the entire winter? Glass top stove? Refrigerator? Water pump? Will the furnace fire back up? Temperatures up there can get well below zero occasionally during the winter. Are there steps I should take that I haven't considered?
posted by zzazazz to Home & Garden (14 answers total)

You should turn off the water after draining the pipes. You don’t need to heat the place. Unplug the refrigerator because if the house is unheated, the indoor temperature will be less than the set point for the refrigerator.
posted by Comet Bug at 12:51 PM on June 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

When we used to let the top floor of our old farmhouse go unheated in the winter, my parents used to pour antifreeze into the toilet traps and sink traps on that floor. I don't know whether that is best practice from an environmental standpoint, but you will want to put something into the traps to keep them filled without freezing/expanding/cracking.
posted by gauche at 1:01 PM on June 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

Even unplugged, your fridge won't be happy being exposed to freezing temperatures for long periods of time. I found out the hard way when I killed a very nice two-year-old fridge by storing it in my mum's garage. But don't take my word for it, Google says the same thing.
posted by kate4914 at 1:01 PM on June 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I shut my house down 2 winters when I was away. I left the fridge on and it was fine. The heat/ thaw cycles de-soldered some of my copper heating pipes, and there was some moisture damage and rust on metal items because they were cold and and dampness condensed. The toilets should be filled w/ RV toilet antifreeze, and covered w/ saran wrap and closed, to avoid it evaporating. Otherwise the house was fine.

Leave a lot of moustraps, and maybe one that's a bucket with a ramp, and no accessible food at all. Mice can make a terrible mess. That's why people used to use blanket chests or sturdy trunks; mice like blankets and quilts and will wreck them.
posted by theora55 at 1:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I would worry a little about the foundation.

I don’t know about really cold places like Michigan, but foundations usually extend below the winter frost line in the soil so that water beneath the foundation cannot freeze and heave the foundation up or crack it.

But if a completely unheated house is embedded in the soil, could the foundation reach the temperature of the air inside it and potentially freeze the water underneath it? I would guess not, but I would want a local expert to reassure me on that point.
posted by jamjam at 1:11 PM on June 2, 2022

We have a cabin in NY Hudson Valley that we close every winter. We have a plumber professionally drain all our pipes, hot water heater and turn off the water (we like having that assurance). We also empty and unplug our fridge, and keep the doors propped open because if there's any moisture you can get mildew/mold/stench. We just replaced a fridge that survived 25 years of this treatment, our new fridge made it this winter. All of our neighbors do the same, and I haven't heard of a spate of dead refrigerators. If you have an ice maker, you'll have to drain that as well.

If you keep fluids in the house (cleaning supplies, toiletries, cooking oils, vinegar, etc) you may want to put them in a plastic tub, just in case they freeze and break. It's only happened a couple of times... but it's been weird random half filled cleaner bottles or shampoo that we would not have expected to free/break. We also put non-perishable foodstuffs that aren't in jars or cans in a closed tub, just in case of mice. I put DampRid in some places that seem to get musty, like the bathroom closet.

I used to do more, like putting linens and clothes in tubs, but eventually stopped with no ill effects.
posted by kimdog at 1:20 PM on June 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

I can't speak to the other appliances, but as long as the fridge isn't the type that has a water line connected to it (i.e., there's no chance of residual water freezing internally) and it's completely cleaned out with the doors propped open, it should be fine in an unheated northern Michigan cabin for the winter.
posted by theory at 1:43 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I forgot to specify that the house has a walk-in basement.
posted by zzazazz at 1:57 PM on June 2, 2022

Re: rodents. I have a friend who leaves a mountain house unused in the winter and she always leaves all of the used sheets on the beds waiting until the next season to wash them. She says they have much less problems with pack rats taking up residence in the mattresses. I guess maybe the human smell scares them off?
posted by BoscosMom at 2:08 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I do a similar thing with no problem. Be sure to do the antifreeze thing in drains and toilets, and I've found that in addition to eliminating all food sources, putting dryer sheets in the beds/drawers/etc. seems to deter the mice.
posted by nixxon at 2:29 PM on June 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've done this and people have good suggestions. If you don't feel confident with it you may want to get a professional to run you through the "Closing the house up" routine in terms of water and it may be that you have to put a drain in somewhere in the system but they can tell you. I put antifreeze in my toilets. But yeah bedding or any soft stuff is a concern so you'll want to either bag/bundle up all of your bedding (out here in Vermont people sometimes use metal-lined boxes for this) and think about what you want to do about mattresses.
posted by jessamyn at 4:18 PM on June 2, 2022

Some more hints:

Its best to remove as much water out of traps before pouring in the antifreeze. A shop vac works wizard for this task and for getting the toilet tank bone dry.

Everything upstream of the water shut off has to be protected from freezing. This might mean adding a small baseboard to a utility/pump room or running heat tapes along a pipe.

Fridges are fine being stored at freezing temps. It is when they are left running below 40Fish or so that there is a problem. The compressor oil thickens and increases wear on the motor.
posted by Mitheral at 5:48 PM on June 2, 2022

If the house will be visibly unoccupied for the winter (the drive not being plowed would be a dead giveaway) then you should assume that people are going to try to break in. It's super common in areas northern Minnesota where cabins are often closed up for the winter.

Don't leave any valuables in the house, obviously. But also it's good to have someone nearby stop by every now and then to make sure that nothing is out of the ordinary. In my old northern MN touristy town - where lots of people had second homes and summer cabins - it was common for folks to let the police know that the house would be empty. The police would drive by every now and then on their rounds, noting the empty houses, making sure that there were no signs of break-ins or other problems.
posted by Gray Duck at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you, all. Great answers. I'm not concerend about leaving it unatteneded as far as theft. My driveway is 1/4 of a mile long and it's uphill all the way to the house.
posted by zzazazz at 6:45 AM on June 4, 2022