On the Level: Instead of winterizing, have a neighbor check-in while you're away

We are leaving the area after Thanksgiving until early spring, and I want to winterize the house while we are away. The house was built in the late 1970s. We have oil baseboard hot water heat and plan to leave the temperature set at around 55 degrees. We are on well water and I would like to know if it is OK to shut the water off by turning power off to the pump, or do we need to leave the water on for the hot water heating system? Given recent events and increased price of heating oil, does it make sense to just turn the heat off and winterize all the water pipes?

I am very reluctant to advocate winterizing a modern house the way we traditionally know and understand the term. Houses that have been foreclosed upon or repossessed by a lending institution are winterized the old way and the power is shut off and they decline rapidly. Completely shutting down and draining a hot water heating system, plus the water heater and interior plumbing lines and, with a well, draining any well equipment that may be in danger of freezing (such as pressure tanks and conditioning system) to me is a sure recipe for trouble. A boiler - that's what the water heating device supplying your baseboard heaters is called even though it doesn't produce steam - doesn't like to go cold. Metals shrink and gaskets get loose and they end up leaking. And even a teaspoon of water left in a water line in the wrong place can freeze and cause trouble that you only find when you turn things back on. That's why when you enter a professionally and traditionally winterized house you see big red signs on all of the plumbing fixtures warning you that it has been turned off and drained down and returning it to service requires special attention by a plumber - preferably the one who did the winterizing.

Additionally, houses themselves don't like to get cold. It takes a while but all the construction materials get cold and some may begin to change shape. Shrinking and cracking of wood and drywall takes place and things don't necessarily return to their original condition when they warm back up. I told my thrifty sister - who has a vacation home in Vermont that she would close down between visits during the winter months - about this. It wasn't so much the cracking materials that changed her mind, but the experience of returning to a cold house and, even with the furnace going full blast, having it take up to six hours to finally warm the house all the way that finally got her attention. Now they drain the water system down, put antifreeze in the traps and toilets and leave the furnace set at 48F. She tells me she can get back on line in about an hour now. Vermont winters routinely get well below zero so we can count ourselves lucky as zero is rare here, but it does get cold. Houses begin to become at risk of interior freezing when the thermometer gets to about 25F and lower outside, assuming no wind.

Given what can go wrong by completely winterizing your house by turning the boiler off and draining it down versus the cost of keeping the system at a bare minimum is, for me, a no-brainer. The cost and hassle of repairing what may happen can make the cost of oil look pretty cheap. And yes, you do need to keep supply water going to the boiler. The boiler probably has a low-water cut-off in the event its water level decreases for some reason, and a malfunction is the only reason I can think that would cause that. Your ace in the hole would be a trusted friend or neighbor who would look in from time to time. Make sure this person has any of the important contact numbers beyond your number, such as your boiler service provider or plumber in the event calls need to be made. I recommend leaving them as a list on the kitchen counter. And when you come home remember to treat this friend to dinner in appreciation. That's money well spent.

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