At what temperature below 32 degrees, do you feel the need to winterize a vacant rental house? Even if the house has PEX pipes, at what low temperature warrants your time in draining the pipes and putting anti-freeze in the P-traps?

Also, do you keep the house heat on or turn it off if your pipes have been drained of any water? Is there any need to heat a house that has been winterized?

In Michigan I'd winterize automatically because after Sept 15th it can go below freezing any night. By Oct 15 it starts getting cold.

Most houses here have pipe heating tape with thermostats and/or insulation on the pipes. Per my knowledge, in your area it does not get much less than 15 degrees and then only for a few days. If you have insulation on the pipes, probably not much to worry about, imho. If no insulation on the pipes just open the faucets and drain them, drain water heater, put a dump valve on incoming cold water line, open that valve and pressurize the system by using your air compressor which will blow out the lines. Antifreeze is cheap insurance.A gallon of the pink RV antifreeze is enough. put a little in each trap.

We routinely get down in the teens during this time of year...although as we say in Missouri, "if you don't like the weather, take a nap." We're in the low 30s today...supposed to be 60s this weekend.

If tenant calls with frozen pipes you need to assess where they froze and fix them asap. Usually they are in exterior walls. Use a hair dryer to blow hot air on pipes. Once thawed look for leaks and fix any. Use insulation and wrap pipes, especially in outside walls. That foam insulation with the split works well but make sure you protect the angles because that's often where you get leaks.

I keep all utilities on in houses when vacant.

For vacant houses, I shut off water at the main and open the faucets, but I don't blow out the pipes. I do put antifreeze in the traps. I leave the heat on, but set to 50 or 55. Another reason to leave heat on is for Allure floors, the separate if they get too cold.

I haven't had a lot of issues with frozen pipes in occupied houses. The main issue I had was a house on a crawl space which was too small and inaccessible. My contractor ended up pulling up the floor in a few spaces and digging trenches to access the pipes an install heat tape. Since doing that, I haven't had any issues.

It isn't like the pipes freeze instantly once the temperature reaches below 32 degrees. The object has come down below that temperature to freeze and that could take days if it is a big thermal mass and the temp was 50, or hours if the temp was 34 degrees and not much thermal mass.

I do not shut of the heat in a vacant building unless it would be months. As everything gets colder, it shrinks and I don't want floors walls doors etc going through that temp change if they don't have to. Keep it at the lowest temperature - 45 - 50 degrees.

I open cabinet doors, insulate the pipes, maybe put heat tape on the most vulnerable ones, if it gets really cold and windy I might drizzle the water. I try to get the sun in to warm it up if possible during the day.

I did drain pipes one time in an old house. Didn't blow out the lines and ended up with a leak at at low point and an elbow when I turned it back on.

The creek behind my house is running water, it has NEVER frozen over completely in 25 years that I have been here. There gets a skim of ice in some areas that are calmer, or where the water splashes up, but overall the running water has not frozen even with a couple of weeks below zero.

I keep the heat on, on all my vacant properties T stat's set to 60.

Heat is cheap, and houses don't like to get that cold.

Roy,

Our temps are mild, only truly worried in Jan/Feb.

Our days usually warm up and the nights get chilly.

A lot of this depends on the heat source - basement furnaces or crawl space duct work helps warm the crawl, but elec baseboard heat NEVER gets under the floor.

Also dependent on the type of foundation. Slab? A little heat keeps the pipes safe. Block with no gaps? It takes 3-4 days of constant cold for the cold to work thru the block. Brick? The problem is air gaps.

In my area I've found that repair the occaisional cracked pipe is waaay cheaper than a single month of gas heat.

But like Ken, we either working on a house or showing it so it has at least low heat.

Tip: a gas pilot's thermocouple will corrode quickly and need replacement if the pilot is shut off, so we save service calls by keeping the pilots on.

BRAD

Thanks Brad20K and all others for those very helpful cold weather tips.

Yes great point Brad20k - if the hot water heater is gas but you don't want to heat the tank just turn the valve to pilot.