Leaving the house for winter

7-3.1 Which route fits your house?

There are two, and half of each protects little. Illinois Extension says to keep the heat on at no lower than 55 degrees and have someone check daily, or drain and shut off the water, with an exception for indoor sprinkler systems. CSU says unoccupied areas should still be heated to well above freezing.

Sources for empty homes are thin, and this manual says so plainly. No source could be opened that gives a homeowner's drain-down procedure for house lines. The closest is an IBHS bulletin from November 2019, written for commercial buildings only. It sets a 55°F minimum, monitoring to stay above 40°F, shutting off domestic water and draining lines. Read it as a pointer for a house, not a rule.

January normal lows at the stations in §1-3 run in the teens, so a few days without heat is not a small risk.

7-3.2 Route one: how do you keep the heat and check it?

Treat it as a job someone else must be able to do from a card. Do the §7-1 check first, then run the list below. Open cabinet doors, as IBHS advises, so room heat reaches pipes on outer walls.

Fuel is the quiet failure. A gauge reading below 20% means call your retailer, and PERC warns that running out can create fire or explosion hazards and put out pilots. A pilot that has gone out goes to a qualified technician, not you or your checker. Ask your supplier about a regular delivery schedule and tell them the house is empty.

Your checker walks through the same way each day: read the thermostat, look under sinks, look at the ceiling below any upstairs bathroom, listen for running water. Outside, look at vents for snow. CPSC says to clear snow from outside vents for furnaces and similar appliances. Around propane equipment, use a broom on loose snow only, touch nothing, and call the supplier if anything looks wrong. See §8-1.

7-3.3 Route two: what does draining involve?

It means shutting the water at the main and getting it out of every line, which is harder than it sounds. Follow the shutoffs in §1-2, then open faucets to let the lines empty. Toilets, traps, the water heater, softener and pressure tank all hold water, and no source gives this manual a tested method for them.

Hire the drain-down if you aren't sure of it. Ask the plumber to walk you through what was done, write it on your card, and leave the restart steps with you. The well pump breaker is yours to find (§1-2). The tank's air valve belongs to a licensed professional, and so does the pressure switch, which is connected to electric power.

7-3.4 Coming back in spring

Start slowly, and go through the house with someone else if you can.

1. Walk the house before any water goes on. Look for stains, wet spots and a smell of gas. A gas smell means §E-1.
2. Have a technician start any appliance that was shut down.
3. Open the main a little at a time, with someone watching the fixtures.
4. Stored water needs its own step. CDC's cistern page covers disinfecting a treated-water cistern after a long absence, set out in §3-3.
5. If you are on a well, spring is CDC's time to check it for mechanical problems. Testing is in §2-3.