Closing up a seasonal place
Annual · typically October
Why it matters
A seasonal place spends the winter with no one to hear the drip, smell the mouse nest, or notice the furnace quit. Closing it properly means engineering the house so nothing NEEDS attention for months: no water in the pipes to freeze, no food to invite tenants, no systems running unwatched. In a climate like your county's, the physics are unforgiving — water expands 9% when it freezes, and it always finds the low spot you forgot. The difference between "drained" and "mostly drained" is the whole ballgame.
What skipping it costs
$3,000–$75,000
An empty house in a freeze climate is the highest-stakes version of every plumbing failure: a line that freezes in January isn't found until April, after months of thaw-leak-freeze cycles have run water through floors and walls. Add the mice who found the gap by the gas line, and 'we'll deal with it in spring' becomes the renovation you didn't plan. Closing day is four hours; the alternative is a season of contractors.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
You'll need: Air compressor if blowing lines (or hire that part), Shop vac, RV/marine antifreeze (the pink stuff — NEVER automotive) for traps, Steel wool or copper mesh for mouse gaps, Baking soda for the fridge.
The closing sequence — order matters:
- Water off, then empty the lines. Main valve off (well: pump breaker too), open every faucet high-to-low, flush toilets dry. Blowing the lines with a compressor (30–50 psi, zone by zone) is the gold standard; gravity draining alone leaves water in the sags.
- Antifreeze every trap: a cup of PINK RV antifreeze in each sink, tub, shower, toilet bowl AND tank, washer standpipe, and dishwasher. Traps are the water you can't drain.
- Water heater drained (tank) or per-manual. Breaker or gas off.
- Heat: pick a philosophy and commit. Either true cold-close (everything drained, heat OFF) or heat-on-55° with the water still off. The expensive mistake is the middle path — heat on 'low' with water in the lines, trusting a furnace no one is watching.
- Mouse-proof: steel wool or copper mesh in every gap around pipes and lines, fridge doors PROPPED OPEN with baking soda inside, every crumb of food out, mattresses tented if mice have won before.
- Final walk: breakers you're leaving on labeled, valve positions photographed, a copy of this list and the water-main location taped inside a kitchen cabinet for whoever opens up.
Hire it out
$250–$600National fair range — local labor moves this number.
A proper close-up service runs $250–$600, and the open-up in spring about the same — worth pricing as a package. The line-blowing is the step that justifies a pro: they carry the compressor and they've felt the difference between a drained zone and a quiet one.
Judge any service by its trap discipline. A crew that antifreezes every fixture and photographs the walk-through is doing the job; a crew done in 45 minutes turned your thermostat down and drove away.
Ask the tech
- Does the close-up include blowing the lines AND antifreeze in every trap — toilets, tubs, washer, dishwasher?
- Do you photo-document the meter reading and thermostat setting on your way out?
- What does the spring opening cost as a package with the closing?
Red flags you're being upsold
- A 'winterization' that's just the water heater off and the thermostat down. If nobody touched the traps and lines, the plumbing isn't winterized — it's abandoned.
- Automotive antifreeze anywhere in a potable system. It's toxic; the pink RV stuff exists for exactly this.
- Close/open packages priced like marina haul-outs — this is half a day of plumbing-adjacent work, not a boatyard crane.
Second opinion time: Any closing service over $800 for a typical house — you're being billed like a lodge.
The call
DIY the checklist if you're handy and own a compressor; hire the line-blowing if not — it's the one step where a miss costs five figures. Either way, YOU do the final walk with the list.