Winterizing house questions (Machias: roofing, maintenance, live)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

All heating systems should have 50/50 antifreeze in them. They will not freeze. This requires a double check valve to prevent the heating system water from backing up into your drinking water.

If a system has been drained, before you pressurize the system with water, pressurize it with air. Hook an air hose to the outside faucet and pressurize it to 40 PSI. Get a kidto comealong to listen. Tell him you'll buy him an iced cream cone or a Big Mac if he finds a leak. (Air leaks are much easier to clean up than water leaks.) Kids can hear better than we can.

With 30 years experience in real estate, you discover and invent things along the way.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Bonneval

Wow - how unfortunate about the baseboard heating! That sounds like quite a project to remedy.

Yes, we ripped it all out. Most of it still had stagnant water in it full of algae.

[Coolair]

Originally Posted by Bonneval

Thanks for your advice. No smart devices attached to our heating. We just have an electric toe kick heater in the bathroom and a Rinnai propane wall heater in the kitchen, with propane tank outside. We can set the Rinnai to LOW, and it seems to keep the room at about 48. (I also don't like the idea of wasting energy, but at LOW it doesn't run too much. And maybe outweighs the cost/waste of a fridge if that negatively impacts it - I had just read about how it stresses the appliance if it is colder outside the fridge)

By turning it in to low temperature i meant the fridge and freezer. Th fridge and freezer will not be opened so the low temperature setting will be appropriate. In my fridge the lowest is 4.

[Submariner]

My house is a 'custom design'. Our Southern wall is mostly big windows [triple-pane argon-filled blah blah], and when we decided to extend the roof out 8 foot to give us a wrap-round porch. I used clear greenhouse roofing on the Southside. So in the winter, we get a good deal of sunlight in our house. 'Passive solar heating'.

The rest of our house has 2 inches of spray-on urethane foam and 9 inches of fiberglass batting [on walls and across the ceiling] before I hung wood-grain paneling.

As a result I do not think that our house can dip below 50F even if we did not provide any heat.

A couple of years ago, my inlaws flew us to Waikiki for 2 weeks to enjoy Christmas and New Year on the beach. We did not leave any sources of heat running when we were gone. When we returned, our cats had gone crazy in the house, it took a week to clean up the mess the cats had made. But our house did not freeze.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

"Cat fever" had kept the house warm.

[SportFury59]

If you turn off your heat do not leave your refrigerator operating with contents inside, especially liquids.

I have a refrigerator in my unheated detached garage and now for the past two years I have neglected/forgotten to shutoff fridge and remove beer/soda before freezing temps have set in.
Result is frozen, bursting containers. What a mess.

[Bonneval]

Originally Posted by Coolair

By turning it in to low temperature i meant the fridge and freezer. Th fridge and freezer will not be opened so the low temperature setting will be appropriate. In my fridge the lowest is 4.

thanks, I understood that - my response was to your message saying it was a waste of energy to leave the heat on, which I agree with (but was trying to justify by saying I could turn my heat to "low").

My concern with turning the heat off completely was that I've read that if the temp exterior to the fridge is colder than the inside (even set at the lowest setting), it can stop working, thus thawing the food, or as another poster wrote, the contents inside can freeze and burst. Also I read that the compressor can fail prematurely (due to the oil in the compressor gelling and not lubricating properly).

I'm leaning towards draining the plumbing and leaving the heat on - hoping that energy waste outweighs the potential damage from my fridge prematurely going to a landfill.

[Bonneval]

Originally Posted by Submariner

My house is a 'custom design'. Our Southern wall is mostly big windows [triple-pane argon-filled blah blah], and when we decided to extend the roof out 8 foot to give us a wrap-round porch. I used clear greenhouse roofing on the Southside. So in the winter, we get a good deal of sunlight in our house. 'Passive solar heating'.

The rest of our house has 2 inches of spray-on urethane foam and 9 inches of fiberglass batting [on walls and across the ceiling] before I hung wood-grain paneling.

As a result I do not think that our house can dip below 50F even if we did not provide any heat.

A couple of years ago, my inlaws flew us to Waikiki for 2 weeks to enjoy Christmas and New Year on the beach. We did not leave any sources of heat running when we were gone. When we returned, our cats had gone crazy in the house, it took a week to clean up the mess the cats had made. But our house did not freeze.

Sounds great! We'd love to do and addition on the south wall like that.

[Bonneval]

Originally Posted by SportFury59

If you turn off your heat do not leave your refrigerator operating with contents inside, especially liquids.

I have a refrigerator in my unheated detached garage and now for the past two years I have neglected/forgotten to shutoff fridge and remove beer/soda before freezing temps have set in.
Result is frozen, bursting containers. What a mess.

Good to know! Thanks for the warning.

[mainegrl2011]

Obviously, there are many opinions on what is best. I was going to suggest keeping the heat on at about 50 degrees. You said turning your heater on low would keep the temp about 48 degrees. Some people who have hot water baseboard heat have nontoxic antifreeze added to their heating system in case the heat goes out/electric is off for an extended period of time. Doing this can interfere with furnace service contracts with some companies.

One person explained to me that if there is no insulation in your house (like a summer camp on a pond or lake), have a plumber drain the pipes/water in water heater and it won't hurt to turn the heat off. In that scenario, unplug the refrigerator and empty it of contents and leave/prop the refrigerator doors open. Personally, I would leave the heat on about 50 degrees. You can get a special light fixture (inexpensive and bluish purple) to put in your window that will light up if the temperature in the room goes below a certain setting (your choice). That way people (like your friend who is watching/checking on the house) can see the light from outside if it comes on as an indicator that there is a problem with the heat/temp dropping lower than what you set. The light won't come on if the electricity goes off though. You can also leave a light or two on in the house (with a new bulb in it) easily visible to your friend watching the house. This is a way to tell if the electricity goes out. You can go to the next level and put a lamp (or lamps) on a timer to come on and go off at certain times of the day. Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?