Winterize Your Vacation Home

With the arrival of our first winter snow (winter technically arrived yesterday), comes the reminder that our Cape vacation homes need to be winterized. Winterization can be intense, or not so intense, depending on how much you plan to use the home over the winter months.

For maximum energy savings, and minimum winter use, the house should be completely shut down. This will include draining the pipes, and turning off the electric.  Before my Eastham home was my primary residence, we kept it at 50 degrees during the winter months, allowing us to come out frequently for weekends.

By far the most important thing you can do to prevent serious damage to your vacation home is to shut off the water at the pump before you leave for an extended period of time. This can be done by shutting off the electric wall switch for the pump and/or turning the master water valve off.

Check out this article at wikihow.com (no, it's not wikileaks!) on how to winterize your home.