Keep pipes from freezing in your vacant vacation home

If you plan to leave your vacation home or cabin unoccupied for the winter, leaving it without heat, you’ll need to take a few precautions to make sure water doesn’t freeze in your pipes, toilets, or other plumbing fixtures. Frozen water expands, causing pipes or other fittings to break. It can damage pipes, sink faucets, shower heads, and any other plumbing fixtures that contain standing water.

But the damage doesn’t end with broken pipes. Once frozen water thaws and flows again, it will leak out of frozen pipes and fixtures and can cause damage to ceilings, walls, floors, and property. You will literally have a flood in your vacation home. If you’re not there at the time (which is likely if the house got that cold), you could do major damage. It goes without saying that damage can be expensive and repairs can be time consuming. This scenario can be easily prevented by the owner in quite a simple way. While it will most likely take a few hours to do, it is time wisely spent.

Solution: empty your lines
The first step in avoiding a plumbing disaster is to turn off the water supply to your home, or have your water department turn it off for you. Next, you will need to drain the entire plumbing system in your house by opening all the faucets. Then drain your water heater and disconnect the drain hoses from dishwashers and clothes washers. Fourth, check to see if you have valves that can be drained. They tend to be located near your water meter. If you have any, use a wrench to open the drain cocks on them. If there is a low pipe without a faucet or drain, open a joint where the pipes connect to let the water out. The next step is to flush all the toilets and pour an eco-friendly, biodegradable antifreeze solution into them (diluted as recommended in the instructions). Then for this solution on all your plumbing fixtures that don’t have traps, like showers, tubs, sinks, and your washing machine standpipe. If your house has a main trap, pour undiluted antifreeze into it.

When you return to your vacation home, you will be able to use your plumbing as normal when you turn the water back on.

By completing all of these steps, you can rest assured that you won’t have to deal with frozen pipes or water damage the next time you return to your lovely vacation getaway.