Winterizing Guide: How to Freeze-Protect Water Supply Piping, Drain Piping, Water Pumps, Tanks, Heaters InspectAPedia® -
How to winterize or freezeproof a building - how to set the down thermostat or turn off heat entirely
How to avoid freezing water supply pipes and drain piping, drains, traps, toilets, etc.
How to winterize pipes: frost protection for plumbing systems
Use of heat tapes, heat sources, pipe routing, to prevent freezing pipes
How to thaw frozen water pipes, heating pipes, & drain pipes
How to fix frozen, burst, leaky building pipes
How to de-winterize a building and restore it to service: check for & fix leaks, set up water equipment.
Questions & answers about how to protect buildings, piping, heating equipment, water softeners, wells, & foundations from freezing, ice, & frost damage
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This article series provides step by step details in winterizing a building or freeze protection for buildings where heat may be lowered or left turned off. Avoiding freezing pipes in buildings also means avoiding later leaks, water damage, or postly mold contamination. The articles at this website will answer most questions about freeze protection for piping and other building plumbing and heating system components: how to winterize a building to avoid frozen pipes, and how to thaw frozen water supply & drain piping, wells, & water tanks.
A Detailed Guide to Winterizing a Building to Protect from Frozen Pipes, Leaks, Water Damage
What happens when water freezes in a copper pipe?
Our separated copper pipe solder joint (above left) shows how freeze damage to a heating system baseboard pipe can cause the copper pipe to simply slip apart at the solder joint. Our freeze-bulged and split copper water pipe (above right) shows how a copper water pipe can freeze, expand, and burst.
The resultant building water flooding and damage can be extensive and in some cases may involve a costly mold remediation project as well. Also, failure of an owner to take appropriate steps to prevent freezing pipes and water damage can result in loss of insurance coverage in some instances. For example, turning off heat without also winterizing a home would be an improper practice likely to lead to frozen burst pipes and water damage and mold contamination.
Our photo at left shows a separated solder joint caused by freezing at a heating baseboard copper pipe. The repair of this leak is shown later in this article.
Our page top photo shows a frozen, burst water pipe close to an elbow. We suspect that the process of heating the pipe during soldering of the elbow connection might soften the copper in this location, permitting the very rounded expansion shape at the point of pipe rupture. The elbow itself may be more resistant to bursting during freezing.
Key Building Winterizing Topics to Avoid Freeze Damage
Freezing water pipes or drain pipes in a building are worse than inconvenient: often the frozen pipes burst, risking serious water damage and even toxic mold growth in a building when the frozen, burst pipe later thaws and leaks into the structure. The most extreme water and mold damage to buildings where pipes burst occurs in unoccupied structures whose conditions are not being monitored, such as a house for sale, or a remote, weekend home. Other freezing weather damage besides floods from frozen pipes can include cracked plaster in older homes or cracked and dislocated wood flooring.
For buildings facing these extra risks, we provide a range of suggestions for winterizing or freeze-proofing a building as well as for monitoring building conditions so that prompt action can be taken to deal with a burst pipe.
Here is our list of key topics to consider when working to winterize or freeze-proof a building, along with links to more detail on these subjects:
1. Prepare the building to be left unattended: regardless of whether heat is to be left on or off:
Turn off unneeded electrical components. Modern TV's and items that use plug-in wall chargers and voltage converters are always using electricity. Unplug sensitive electronic equipment to protect against power surges or lightning.
Protect against rodents and animal damage: close openings into soffits, attics, basements, crawl spaces; be sure all trash and garbage have been removed from the building. Raccoons used to play with the Christmas ornaments in our attic, and mice would come into the building to eat anything, even books and bars of soap.
How we keep mice our of our building:
It's almost impossible to keep mice out of a building if they want to come in for the winter (they do). Beyond calling for regular visits from a pest control expert, here is what we recommend>
Removing any open food, storing food in cans or closed heavy plastic containers, and closing obvious mouse entry points will help. Our attorney ignored these suggestions and was plagued with mice, tolerating them until the morning that bleary-eyed, hardly awake, she was pouring rice crispies into her cereal bowl. A mouse lept out of the box right into her cereal!
We leave mothballs (naphta) in areas and even in equipment that tends to be invaded by pests looking for a sheltered place to spend the winter. Mothballs keep mice out of the filing cabinets in our unheated garage. Just put the whole box of mothballs, opened, but not poured out, into the cabinet, closet, or vehicle.
Insurance coverage: review your building insurance policy with your agent to be sure the property is covered when it is unoccupied.
Windows and doors: make sure that all windows are closed. If the building has triple-track storm and screen windows, make sure that the storm windows are closed with the glass "down" - not just the screens down. Latch and lock these openings.
Other building button-up details: Make sure building exhaust fans are off. If the building has an exhaust fan that leaks or blows cold air in or leaks warm air out, cover the opening (remember to remove those covers before use to avoid a fire risk.) Stop mail and magazine or newspaper deliveries. Let a trusted neighbor know you'll be away and ask them to keep an eye on the property.
Building winterizing & monitoring services: decide if you want or need a professional to winterize your building and or to monitor it during the time that it will be shut down.in some locales companies offer a winterized building protection service that ranges from weekly or even daily visits to check on a property to emergency response to a no-heat call or water-entry call that can be made automatically by a home security system when those conditions occur. If power outages are common in the area, a battery-backup for alarms and sump pumps would be a smart addition to the building.
2. Decide if the building heat going to be left "on" or "off" : the answer determines the type and extent of freeze-proofing steps needed.
If heat is to be left on in a partially winterized building see the procedure at: Winterize - Heat On
If heat is to be turned off and the building completely winterized, see the procedure at: Winterize- Heat Off
Below we list topics of special interest for people who are leaving a building unattended in freezing weather.
Freeze Alarms: systems that warn of loss of heat or freezing conditions in a building can notify you or a building manager when something needs attention.
buildings with an existing security system can add freeze-alarms. If your building already has a security alarm system it's usually a small matter to add low-temperature, loss of heat, loss of electrical power, and water flood sensors to the system.
If your building does not already have a security system some simple devices can turn on a light to alert neighbors to a heat loss or building flood.
Freeze-damage risk points in buildings: where building piping, mechanical systems, or other components are likely to freeze. Identifying drafts and cold spots, sealing drafts, using insulation, or adding a little heat can prevent freezing.
Our photo shows an example of a problem spot: piping under sinks in un-insulated pipe chases, piping in attics, crawl spaces, walls, garages, under floors.
Different piping materials (copper, steel, plastic) and different grades of water piping material affect the freeze-resistance of the piping. Installation details such as piping slope, routing, and insulation are important factors in pipe freeze problems.
We discuss the procedure for finding and protecting building freeze-points at Finding Freeze-Up Points.
Frozen hot water heating baseboards & radiators: how to prevent this problem which leads to loss of heat and more extensive freeze and later water damage to buildings. Our photo just shows a frozen, burst hot water baseboard heating pipe.
If a building heating system shuts down due to an operating problem (loss of electricity, a problem with the heater itself, or simply due to running out of oil) the heating system failure is likely to lead to frozen pipes which, when the weather warms, can cause serious building flooding and water or mold damage.
A burst heating baseboard line such as the ones we show here and at the top of this page can occur at more than one point in the heating system piping.
A dripping faucet or a toilet that runs can send a slow trickle of water down a drain line leading to freezing or even a burst drain pipe in an un-heated crawl space, basement, or outdoors where a building drain may be above the frost line.
Heat tapes & other heat sources to avoid frozen pipes: safely to avoid freezing pipes but also avoid fires.
Using fans to move air, small point-source electric heaters or light bulbs, adding heat to crawl spaces, opening cabinet doors and similar steps can protect problem spots from freezing in a building when its temperatures are set low.
We discuss use of heating cables on plumbing supply and drain pipes at Heat Tape Guide.
Watch out: as we explain at Heat Tape Guide, some models of heat tapes used for freeze protection can cause a building fire if the tapes are not installed according to the manufacturer's recommendations, particularly if the tape crosses over itself.
As Ryan Duffy points out, connecting the heat tape to a GFCI-protected circuit can substantially reduce the risk of heat tape fires. However if the GFCI-protected heat tape circuit trips-off during typical current leakage conditions and without drawing attention of the building occupants, the risk of freeze damaged piping, leaks, water damage, and mold damage will be increased.
The US CPSC recommended in 1994 that HUD consider dropping its no-GFCI-on-Heat-Tape-Circuit provision, and that heat tape powering electrical circuits be be protected with a GFCI device in the electrical panel rather than at the electrical receptacle or "outlet". Ground fault protection was first required in the 1987 NEC for heat tapes that did not have a metal covering. In 1996/1999 the NEC expanded the requirements for GFCI protection and specified that mobile homes would have at least one heat tape receptacle. [A significant number of heat tape-related fires occurred in mobile and manufactured homes.]
Steps to prevent freezing building drains and traps are discussed at Drain Pipe Protection.
Heating systems and their effect on building winterizing plans:
Heating systems should be inspected and if necessary cleaned and tuned before leaving heat on in a building in order to assure that the heater is in reliable condition.
Heating boilers that are to be left turned on also need water supply left turned-on for both hydronic (hot water) and steam heat systems, but we outline a little plumbing trick will let you turn off all other water supply in a building.
Furnaces & electric heating systems do not need water to be left on in a building.
Hot water heat continuous circulation can be used in hydronic systems to reduce building freeze-ups. Steam heat system condensate returns need to be freeze-protected.
Heat-On Winterization: See How to Winterize a Building If you are Keeping Heat On for a discussion of what to do to assure that your warm air furnace or hot water heating boiler or steam boiler will operate safely and reliably throughout the heating season.
Thawing frozen pipes: how to un-freeze pipes, how to find where the pipes are frozen, how to avoid setting the building on fire is discussed in detail at Thawing Frozen Pipes.
Thermostat set-back guide to avoid freezing pipes in buildings: how to find the optimum low-temperature setting for a building thermostat is discussed in detail at Thermostat Settings.
Water turn off for freeze protection: where to turn off building water, what water to leave on, how to safely leave hot water heat on with other water shut off. Draining water tanks, water pumps, hot water tanks.
Winterizing steps to take in a building - winterizing or freeze-protection for building water supply piping, turning off water, preventing freezing pipes, draining piping systems, shutting down a building entirely: draining piping, turning off heat and electricity.
How to Winterize a building to Prevent Freeze Damage
First we decide the level of building winterization to be undertaken. There are two very different approaches to protecting a building and its mechanical systems from freezing-damage:
Heat-on winterization: the first approach to winterizing a building involves keeping the building heated, but to a lower temperature. This approach is usually best for a building as it helps avoid indoor humidity, moisture, and even freeze-cracking of some building materials such as flooring or drywall. We discuss "Heat-On" building winterization steps at How to Winterize a Building If you are Keeping Heat On.
Heat-off winterization: the second approach to winterizing a building is to turn off its heat, often also its electricity, drain piping, and take other steps to reduce the chances of freeze-damage. This approach is taken when a building is to be left unoccupied for a long time, when the owners cannot pay for heat (though they may face later repairs that would have made the heating cost look attractive), or when a building has been abandoned, such as a foreclosed property. We discuss "Heat-Off" building winterization steps at How to Winterize a Building If you are Turning Building Heat Off.
Questions & Answers regarding this article
Questions & answers about how to protect buildings, piping, heating equipment, water softeners, wells, & foundations from freezing, ice, & frost damage.
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"Freezeproof Your House," Mike McClintock, Rodale's New Shelter, p. 30, October 1985 (approximate date)
"How to Winterize Your Pipes," Mike McClintock, Homeowners How-To Magazine, p. 59-62, Nov-Dec 1979.
"HUD Regulation for Manufactured Homes; Requirement that Heat-Tape not include a GFCI [ copy on file as /plumbing/GFCI_Heat_Tapes_HUD_CPSC_Letter1994.pdf ] - ", Meeting Log, US CPSC, HUD, Dennis McCoskrie, ESEE, 2/14/1994
"Houses in Hibernation," Steve Bailey, New York Times, 24 October 2008 p. D2.
Thanks to reader Ryan T. Duffy for discussing the suggestion for GFCI's on heat tape circuits to reduce fire risk, October 2010.
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