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Posted on 11/27/2025 9:16:33 AM PST by LouAvul
Temps are going to be below freezing for about four days at my farm house/hunting cabin. The house is unheated.
The temps will be getting up to 37°F, 46°F, and 52°F on those days. I have two options.
A) Turn the water off from outside. I'd open up the faucets to relieve any existing pressure and turn the water heater down to low.
B) Option 2. Leave the water on from outside. Turn the water on inside the house at a trickle. (3 faucets) Leave the water heater as is.
Is one method better than the other?
thnx
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At my mountain cabin in N Georgia I did option one and put antifreeze down each sink and some in the toilet tank to avoid the tank cracking and the U joints splitting in the sinks. I actually had a U joint split before I knew to do that.
If the day times temps are going to be that high I wouldn’t worry about as it won’t be freezing long enough to freeze solid.
Are your pipes at least insulated?
Living in the PNW....
If you can’t completely clear the water from the lines let it trickle out. Even a bit of water in an elbow joint can freeze and break the joint. Dump some RV antifreeze in the commode tank and p traps.
I live in an RV and help care for my mum. I made a special adapter to connect the entire system to my air compressor and installed a blow out valve at the lowest point of the water system. It only takes a few minutes now to prepare for a cold spell. I can shower and get water in mum’s house.
If this will be a long term cabin, talk to a plumber and they can get you set up on a quick and easy winterizing system or wrap the entire system with heat tape relatively cheap.
“cabin”
“at the pump”
An above ground pump would make the problem more complex.
I don’t think I could drain my Goulds pumps easily. They are on unions as the code requires.
I think you’d have to leave the water on and open each hot faucet knob to occasional drops and then the cold knobs to a trickle.
As for a toilet, flush and antifreeze would fix the outgo risk. If near an outside wall, there might be a supply line risk. Perhaps a small lamp placed near the shutoff valve would be useful.
Any washing machine would be similar to a toilet. Antifreeze to the drain. Maybe supply lines to a nearby sink and then as per a faucet.
The lights and lamps might add a degree of temperature. The stove could add several. It depends on where they are in relation to the plumbing. Turning them on may not be useful.
A propane tank for a house costs between $400 and $700 for a 100-gallon tank and $1,200 to $1,800 for a 500-gallon above-ground tank. That is the cost for where I live. When I was a kid, every home in rural Georgia had a propane tank behind the house.
But is He LOGGED IN?
.
YUP
Slow Holliday so we talk
About Flushing!?!
IF ON A SEPTIC___NOT GREAT TO PUT ANTI FREEZE OF ANY TYPE DOWN THERE.
If you can, find some incandescent light bulbs. They put out enough heat to keep things from freezing down to about 20 degrees. We used to use them in our chicken coops.
Trickling faucets help, too.
I only put a little because the toilets were drained and the pipes. The plumber told me to do it. Never had any septic problems.
You can’t go wrong turning the water off from outside and draining everything.
The consequences of going wrong suck.
Turning the water off and draining/relieving pressure (Option A) is safer than relying on running a trickle (Option B), especially if the place will be empty for several days.
Here’s why and how to do it.
Option A (shut off and depressurize) greatly reduces the risk of a pipe bursting, because:
No pressure = much less damage even if a small section freezes.
You are not depending on a trickle that might stop (air in line, partial clog, power outage affecting well pump, someone closes a tap, etc.).
Option B (leave water on and trickling) can work in marginal/freezing conditions, but:
It’s a mitigation, not a guarantee.
If temperatures drop lower than forecast inside the house (cold crawlspace, bathroom over unheated space, exterior walls), pipes can still freeze even with a trickle.
If something goes wrong (flow stops or slows), you still have full pressure behind the ice → burst risk.
Given an unheated, unattended building for four days, Option A is the better risk‑management choice.
If you choose A, do as many of these as practical:
Shut off the main supply where it enters the house.
Open all faucets (hot and cold) and any low‑point drains so water can drain and pressure bleeds off.
Flush toilets once or twice to empty as much water as possible from the tanks and bowls.
Set the water heater to Vacation/Low or turn it off, and if it’s above freezing where the heater is, you can leave it full; if you’re in a very cold area and the heater is in an uninsulated space, consider draining it according to manufacturer instructions.
If you have accessible pipes in very cold spots (crawlspace, exterior walls), adding a bit of insulation or leaving cabinet doors open can help keep residual water from freezing as quickly.
If you really cannot shut off from outside or fully drain, a hybrid is sometimes used: shut the main off, open faucets to relieve pressure, and leave interior doors/cabinets open so any residual heat distributes more evenly.
Option B (trickle) is more common when:
You are living in the house or checking it frequently.
The house has some background heat.
Temps are near freezing (e.g., 25–32°F) and not deeply sub‑freezing for long.
That’s not your situation (unheated, unattended), so it’s the less-safe strategy here.
So: for an unheated farm house/cabin empty for four freezing days, shutting off the water at the main and relieving pressure (Option A) is the better method
“...move to Florida...”
The year I left Florida it snowed about two days after I pulled out of Tampa. Is it ever safe?
wy69
Leave the water heater on. Open the doors on your cabinets. Close the outside taps.
That should help.
Get a heat wire. Plug it in and make sure the sensor is facing the pipe coming into the house. Then strap it tight with zip ties down the length of the pipe.
-SB
Every place is different. If all the plumbing is on the sunny side of the house, that’s better than the north side. If you have water-filled radiators, and the water in them freezes, your radiators could explode and when the ice thaws you have a big wet mess all over. If any of the pipes are exposed to drafts, they could freeze faster. If they’re insulated...
Et cetera.
Turning the water on can help, but not always.
No guarantees. But me, I would drain the radiators, the toilets, the pipes, blow air through them, and leave it that way ‘til spring.
What not to do: electric heat you’re not around to keep an eye on.
If you leave water in the pipes...
don’t go back there without a hair dryer or heat gun, you may have to thaw out a pipe. (Make sure it isn’t broken, first.)
In the future — consider insulation, and a house sitter.
Leaving the thermostat set at 50 and wrapping all the crawlspace pipes with heating tape is the solution I adopted AFTER a burst pipe.
The heating tapes consist of resistive wire powered through an AC plug on one end of the tape. The rest of the tape is wrapped around the pipe, protecting perhaps 10 to twenty feet of pipe. The heating tape is thermostatically controlled and has a light showing when power is being applied; not many watts as I recall.
After installing the tape, I never worried about burst pipes. Only if the power was off for several days in a row would I have to think about the problem.
I think I’d vote “A” in your place. I don’t know if it’s really superior, but I don’t like the idea of leaving water trickling.
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