The complete guide to winterizing a cottage.

What’s in this guide

1. First, the decision: drain or heat
2. Tools and materials
3. Why the order matters
4. 1. Power, heat and fuel
5. 2. Shut off and drain
6. 3. The water heater
7. 4. Aerators and shower heads
8. 5. Blowing out the lines
9. 6. The trapped water below the shutoff
10. 7. Pumps, wells and intakes — in detail
11. 8. Water treatment equipment
12. 9. Drains, traps and antifreeze
13. 10. Toilets
14. 11. Appliances
15. 12. Sump pumps
16. 13. Wildlife and the building
17. 14. Outside and the waterfront
18. 15. Before you lock the door
19. The mistakes that cost the most
20. What to remember for spring
21. Common questions

First, the decision: drain or heat

There are only two safe states for a cottage through an Ontario winter, and choosing between them shapes everything else you do.

Option one: fully drained

Every drop of water is removed from the building — supply lines, water heater, pressure tank, appliances, toilets — and non-toxic antifreeze goes into the drain traps. There is nothing left to freeze, so it does not matter how cold it gets or whether anyone can reach the property.

This is the right answer for most seasonal cottages, and it is the only honest answer where winter access is unreliable: island properties, unmaintained lanes, steep hills, or anywhere freeze-up and spring thaw can cut you off for weeks at a time. A promise to check weekly is worth nothing in the fortnight nobody can get there.

Option two: heated and checked

The building is kept above freezing all winter, and someone physically enters on a schedule to confirm the heat is actually on and working. This suits places used through the winter, or with systems that are genuinely difficult to drain.

It depends on three things holding: a reliable heat source, enough fuel, and someone who can and will get there. If any of the three is shaky, drain it instead.

The insurance dimension

Many Ontario policies carry a heating-season condition. In broad terms, freeze damage to an unoccupied property may be excluded unless the water system has been shut off and drained, or a competent person physically enters on a set schedule to confirm the heat is being maintained. Some insurers also accept a monitored low-temperature alarm.

The number of days that triggers the condition, and how often someone must attend, vary considerably. A smart thermostat generally does not satisfy wording that calls for a person to enter the building. If you are keeping the heat on, it is worth knowing exactly what your policy asks for — and keeping a dated record of the checks.

Confirm the specifics with your own broker or insurer. We can tell you what these clauses commonly say; only they can tell you what yours says. More detail in does your cottage insurance require winter checks?

Tools and materials

Essential

• Air compressor. It does not need to be large. What matters more than tank size is CFM — the volume of air it can move — because you are pushing air through long runs of pipe, not driving a nail gun. A small pancake compressor will handle a modest cottage; a larger one makes it quicker.
• Air hose and air chuck.
• A pressure regulator on the compressor line. Not optional. Most compressors run at 100–150 PSI in the tank, and you need to deliver 30–40. A regulator with a gauge lets you set it and know it is set — guessing at the tank valve is how fittings get blown out.
• A blow-out adapter. A fitting with a male garden-hose thread on one end and an air-hose coupler on the other. Sold as a “blow-out plug,” or made from an old garden hose, a barbed fitting and a hose clamp.
• Garden hose, with the rubber washer in it. Without the washer you will make a mess indoors.
• Wet/dry shop vacuum.
• Non-toxic RV or plumbing antifreeze — the pink product. Several jugs; a typical cottage uses two to four.
• Pipe wrench and an adjustable wrench.
• Flathead screwdriver — many water heater drain valves take one.
• Slip-joint pliers.
• Rags — several, including one to protect chrome when loosening aerators.
• Bucket.
• Painter’s tape.
• Headlamp or work light — crawlspaces and pump houses are dark.

Worth having

• A small hand pump with clear tubing, for drawing water out of low points you cannot reach any other way.
• A plunger head with a hole drilled for an air chuck, for blowing water out of drain traps. Simple to make and genuinely useful.
• Steel wool and expanding foam, for sealing mouse entry points.
• Penetrating oil and old towels, for protecting tools left behind.
• Teflon tape, for anything you take apart and reassemble.
• A camera. Photograph every shutoff, every valve position, and every fitting you take apart. In April you will not remember, and neither will anyone else.

Why the order matters

The sequence below is not arbitrary. Two steps in particular will cost real money if done in the wrong order:

A third that matters nearly as much: the pump breaker comes off before you drain anything. A pump that runs dry destroys its seals, and on a submersible that is an expensive lift out of the well.

1. Power, heat and fuel

Water heater

• Electric: switch off the breaker. Label it if it is not clearly marked.
• Propane or natural gas: switch the unit off and close the gas supply valve to it. If nothing else needs gas over winter, shut the tank valve too.
• Tankless / on-demand: these need manufacturer-specific draining. They hold water in a heat exchanger with very narrow passages, and that exchanger will split if it freezes. Many have their own drain ports and some have a built-in freeze protection that only works with power on. Read the manual for yours.

Pump

Switch off the pump breaker before you drain. A pump that starts with no water burns its seals almost immediately. If the breaker is not labelled, label it now.

The rest of the power

Some owners kill the main breaker; others leave power on for a light on a timer, a sump pump, a low-temperature alarm, or a security system. If you are draining fully and there is no sump to run, main-off is simplest. If you leave power on, know exactly what is still live and why.

Propane and fuel

• If nothing needs propane over winter, close the tank valve.
• If a furnace is staying on, make sure the tank has enough fuel to last the season — running out in February is a common cause of freeze damage.
• Make sure the delivery truck can get in. A propane truck that cannot get down a snowed-in or overgrown lane is an avoidable failure. Clear overhanging branches now, and arrange snow clearing if the lane needs it.
• Disconnect and store barbecue tanks outside, upright. Never indoors.

2. Shut off and drain

Shut off the supply at the source

• Municipal: usually a curb stop in a meter pit near the road, needing a long key to lift the lid and a valve key to turn the stop. Line up the lugs on the valve — that is the closed position, and where a lock would go. If the meter is in the pit, pull it and bring it inside.
• Well: shut off at the pressure tank and switch off the pump breaker.
• Lake or river intake: shut the valve at the pump.

On a ball valve, the handle sits perpendicular to the pipe when closed. Photograph the valve in its closed position before you leave.

Open everything and let gravity do the work

• Open every faucet, hot and cold, on every floor, everywhere.
• Open tub and shower valves, both temperatures.
• Disconnect any garden hose from an outside spigot — a connected hose traps water in the tap and splits it — then open the spigot and leave it open.
• Open any dedicated low-point drain or boiler drain in the system.
• Flush every toilet, holding the lever down to empty the tank as far as it will go.
• Take the toilet tank lids off so you can see what is happening.
• Open laundry taps, a bar sink, an outdoor shower, a boathouse tap — anything fed by the system.

Then leave it. Gravity takes a while, and this is useful dead time: check the gutters, box in the air conditioner, start moving furniture in.

3. The water heater

Power or gas is already off. Now empty it.

1. Connect a garden hose to the tank’s drain valve, with the rubber washer in and snugged up with pliers.
2. Run the hose to a floor drain, outside, or into a bucket.
3. Open the drain valve — often with a flathead screwdriver.
4. Open a hot tap somewhere in the building to break the vacuum, or it will drain slowly or not at all.
5. Let it empty completely. Not mostly. A tank still holding water will put that water straight back into your lines when you introduce air.

Sediment. Older tanks accumulate sediment that can block the drain valve part-way through. If flow stops before the tank sounds empty, close and reopen the valve to dislodge it. If it will not clear, that is a plumber’s job.

Note the model. Photograph the data plate. It makes ordering parts and answering questions far easier later.

4. Aerators and shower heads

Do this before you put air in the lines, for two reasons: the screens trap grit that would otherwise blow through and clog them, and air pressure can damage them.

• Unscrew the aerator from every faucet. Wrap a rag around chrome before putting a wrench on it so you do not mark the finish.
• Hold each one over the sink as it comes off. There are small washers and screens inside and they vanish the moment they hit the floor.
• Take the shower heads off. Water sits trapped inside them, freezes, and cracks the housing. Hand-held heads on hoses come off at the lower fitting so any water drains down.
• Pull-out kitchen sprayers are weighted and will retract into the faucet body when released. Tie a rag around the hose so it cannot pull back in and disappear.
• Put every removed part into one labelled bag and leave it right there at the cottage, somewhere obvious. Under the kitchen sink, in a marked drawer, taped to the water heater — anywhere the next person will find it without hunting. Aerators, shower heads, washers, the main-line washer and the pump plugs all belong together. Taking them home is how they get lost, and a missing aerator screen means a trip to town on opening day.

5. Blowing out the lines

Where to connect the air

• At the drained water heater’s drain valve, using the blow-out adapter. This gets air into both hot and cold sides through the tank.
• At a washing machine hookup — convenient, and already threaded for a hose.
• At an outside spigot — useful if the system is simple.
• At an individual fixture, for a small or simple run.
• At a dedicated blow-out port, if the system has one.

The procedure

1. Regulator to zero. Connect. Then bring pressure up slowly to 30–40 PSI.
2. Work through the fixtures one at a time, generally starting with the one furthest from where the air is going in and working back.
3. Do the hot side and the cold side at every single fixture. This is the most commonly skipped step in the whole job. There are two separate lines to every tap and both hold water.
4. Wait for each outlet to go from spitting water, to a fine mist, to nothing but dry air. The mist stage lasts longer than people expect — be patient.
5. Toilets: hold the fill valve float up with a wrench or a clamp while you pressurise, or most of your air escapes through it. Then release it so air blows through the fill valve and the refill tube as well.
6. Go round a second time. After you shut the compressor off, residual pressure in the system pushes more water out of low spots. Almost every fixture gives up a little more on the second pass.
7. Do not forget: outside spigots, the garden hose itself, laundry taps, dishwasher and washing machine supply lines, ice maker line, water dispenser line, bar sink, outdoor shower, boathouse or bunkie taps, and any hose bib on a deck.
8. Leave the air connected until the appliances are done. The dishwasher, washing machine and ice maker all need to be run while the system is still pressurised so air blows through their inlet valves — see the appliance section below. Disconnecting the compressor first means going back and doing it again.

A note on long horizontal runs. Water sits in flat runs and low spots that air will skate over. If a run has a sag in it, expect to blow it longer than seems reasonable, and consider whether it can be drained at a low point instead.

6. The trapped water below the shutoff

This is the step most people miss, and it is the one that splits a pipe.

When you close the main shutoff and open the taps, everything above the valve drains. But there is usually water sitting below it — in the section between the valve and where the line disappears into the ground, through the foundation, or out to the well or lake. Nothing you have done so far touches that water. If any part of that run is above the frost line and the heat is off, it can freeze and split.

1. Break the union or the fitting loose below the shutoff valve.
2. Take the washer out and put it in the labelled bag with the aerators. It is small, it is easy to lose, and the fitting will not seal without it.
3. Push a length of tubing down into the pipe until it stops or reaches a bend, and draw the water out with a hand pump into a bucket.
4. Blow a short puff of air down it to confirm it is clear. Expect some splatter — do it where that does not matter.
5. Leave the tube sitting in the pipe over winter. It does no harm, it keeps the pipe open, and it is ready for spring.

If the run below the shutoff is genuinely below the frost line for its whole length, this is less critical — but very few cottages are plumbed that neatly, and it costs fifteen minutes to be sure.

7. Pumps, wells and intakes — in detail

Most guides assume municipal water. Most cottages do not have it. This section covers the systems that actually serve waterfront property, and it is where the expensive mistakes happen — a cracked pump body or a destroyed intake line costs far more than a split copper elbow.

Understand which system you have

Before winterizing anything, know which of these you are dealing with. If you are not sure, this is worth establishing while the water is still on and a professional can look at it.

Shallow well jet pump (single-pipe)

An above-ground pump — in a basement, crawlspace or pump house — with a single suction pipe running to a shallow well or a dug well. Limited to roughly 25 feet of lift. The pump body is cast iron or thermoplastic and holds water inside it.

Deep well jet pump (two-pipe / convertible)

Also above ground, but with two pipes running down the well to an ejector assembly at depth — one pressure line down, one suction line up. Same freeze risk at the pump, plus twice the pipework above ground to drain.

Submersible pump in a drilled well

The pump itself hangs down inside the well casing, well below the frost line, and stays there. Water is pushed up and out through a pitless adapter — a fitting in the side of the casing below frost — then runs underground to the building. There is usually a control box or a pressure switch inside.

Lake or river intake

A foot valve and strainer sitting out in the water, connected by a long intake line running back to shore and up to a jet pump, or occasionally to a submersible sitting in the lake. The line is often black poly, sometimes weighted, and frequently laid in shallow water.

Dug well or sandpoint

Shallow, usually served by a jet pump, and often with a well pit or crock that can itself hold standing water.

Winterizing a jet pump (shallow or deep well)

This is the most freeze-vulnerable pump type, because the water is in the pump.

1. Switch off the breaker.
2. Find and remove the drain plug on the pump body. There is normally at least one, at the lowest point of the volute (the round casing). Some pumps have two. Let it empty completely into a bucket or onto the floor.
3. Remove the priming plug on top. Taking the top plug out lets air in so the body actually drains rather than holding a vacuum.
4. Drain the suction line if any part of it is above the frost line. Disconnect it at the pump and let it drain back, or blow it clear.
5. On a deep well jet, drain both lines — pressure and suction.
6. Leave the plugs out over winter, in a bag taped to the pump so they are found in spring. A plug left in traps the last of the water.
7. Photograph the pump, the plug locations and the piping before you take anything apart.

Winterizing a submersible well pump

1. Switch off the breaker.
2. The pump itself stays where it is. It hangs well below the frost line inside the casing and is not at risk. Do not pull it.
3. Drain everything inside the building — pressure tank, all supply lines, water heater, treatment equipment.
4. The vulnerable section is where the line enters the building and rises above frost. The buried run and the pitless adapter are below frost; the last few feet coming up into a crawlspace, basement or pump house are not. Drain or blow that section clear.
5. Check for a drain-back or weep hole. Some installations have a small bleeder that lets the riser drain back into the well. If yours has one, know where it is; if not, the riser must be cleared another way.
6. If there is a well pit rather than a pitless adapter, check it for standing water and for exposed pipe that needs draining. Older well pits are a known freeze point.

Winterizing a lake or river intake

This is the one that gets destroyed most often, and the damage is caused by ice movement rather than by freezing alone.

1. Switch off the breaker.
2. Pull the entire intake line out of the water. A line left in the lake freezes into the ice sheet, and as that sheet shifts, heaves and moves out in spring it will stretch, tear or snap the line and rip the foot valve off the end.
3. Drain the line completely. It may be fifty to two hundred feet of pipe holding a surprising amount of water. Walk it out, lift it section by section, or run air through it.
4. Coil it and store it above the ice line, on shore or under the cottage. Somewhere it will not be crushed, chewed, or buried under a snow load.
5. Remove, drain and inspect the foot valve and strainer. Clean the screen while it is out. Check the valve seals and note anything that needs replacing before spring — it is far easier to buy a part in March than to discover the problem in May with the water off.
6. Drain the pump body as described for jet pumps above — drain plug out, priming plug out.
7. Mark where the intake sat. Photograph it, note the depth and the position, and record it. Getting an intake back to the right depth and away from weed and silt matters, and nobody remembers by spring.

Pressure tanks

Every well and lake system has one, and it holds several gallons. It will split if it freezes.

• Open the tank’s drain valve and let it empty completely.
• Open a tap to break the vacuum, or the tank will hold water no matter how long you wait.
• Bladder tanks hold water on one side of an internal diaphragm. Draining the water side is what matters; the air charge on the other side stays.
• Note the air pre-charge pressure on the data plate, and check it with a tyre gauge at the schrader valve while the tank is empty. Recording it now saves a diagnostic headache in spring.
• Older galvanized tanks without a bladder hold considerably more water and drain more slowly. Give them time.
• Drain the pressure switch and gauge lines if they are separate.

Pump houses and heat trace

• A pump house is only protected while its heat is on. If you are killing the power, everything inside it must be drained as thoroughly as the cottage itself.
• Heat trace and heat tape protect a line only while energised. If the power is going off, that line must be drained. Note where heat trace exists so it is switched back on in spring — and check that its thermostat and plug are working while you are there.
• Insulation alone does not prevent freezing. It slows heat loss; it does not add heat. Insulated pipe with no water movement and no heat source will still freeze given a cold enough stretch.

8. Water treatment equipment

Almost every cottage on a well or a lake has some of this, and it is very commonly forgotten. All of it holds water.

• Sediment and cartridge filters. Put the housing in bypass if there is one, unscrew the sump, drain it, and take the cartridge out. Leave the housing loose so it cannot hold water, and put a new cartridge in come spring.
• UV systems. Switch off the lamp, drain the chamber, and take the quartz sleeve and lamp out if the manufacturer recommends it. A cracked quartz sleeve is an annoying spring surprise. Note the lamp’s age — most need annual replacement.
• Water softeners. Set to bypass, then drain the resin tank and the brine tank per the manufacturer’s instructions. Both hold water. Some units have a dedicated winterizing procedure — check the manual.
• Iron and sulphur filters, greensand, carbon. Same principle: bypass, drain the media tank, drain the drain line to the septic or floor drain.
• Reverse osmosis units. Drain the storage tank, the membrane housing and all the small-diameter tubing. The tubing is easy to overlook and splits readily.
• Backwash drain lines running to a floor drain or outside — drain them, and make sure nothing standing is left to freeze in the line.

9. Drains, traps and antifreeze

Every drain has a trap — the U-bend that holds a plug of water to block sewer gas from coming back up. That water freezes, expands, and cracks the trap.

Step one: blow most of the water out of the trap first

Do this before the antifreeze goes in. If you pour antifreeze straight into a trap full of water, it dilutes into a weak mixture that freezes anyway. Clearing most of the water first is what makes the antifreeze actually work.

Seat the plunger head over the drain, press down to seal, and give it a short blast. Make sure the sink’s overflow opening is plugged — with a rag or your hand — or the air just escapes there and the trap stays full. Expect a little splatter.

You are not trying to empty the trap completely. You are removing enough water that the antifreeze which follows stays strong enough to protect.

Step two: antifreeze into every trap

• Kitchen sink — both bowls, though they usually share one trap
• Every bathroom sink
• Shower and tub drains — larger traps, so use more
• Laundry tub and the washing machine standpipe
• Floor drains, including in a basement, pump house or garage
• Bar sink, outdoor shower, boathouse sink
• Dishwasher (see appliances, below)

Use enough that you see it sitting in the trap. A splash is not enough — the remaining water dilutes it and the mixture freezes anyway.

Septic systems

If you are on septic, a few things are worth doing at closing beyond the traps. Know when the tank was last pumped and whether it is due — a tank pumped before winter is one less thing to worry about. Do not put anything down the drains at closing that you would not normally. And make sure the tank lids and risers are findable under snow: mark them with a stake, because locating a buried lid in March is miserable. More in cottage septic care.

10. Toilets

A flush is not enough. Both the tank and the bowl trap hold water, and porcelain cracks.

1. Supply off, then flush and hold the lever down to empty the tank as far as it goes.
2. Shop-vac the rest out of the tank and the bowl. Take the filter out of the vacuum first — you are picking up water — and empty the vacuum’s canister before you start so you are not blowing dirty water around.
3. Get as much as possible out of the bowl trap by pushing the vacuum hose down into it.
4. Pour antifreeze into the bowl, enough to fill the trap and sit visibly.
5. Pour antifreeze into the tank, then flush. This carries it through the fill holes under the rim, which is exactly where water otherwise hides and cracks the china.
6. Repeat if the flush ran dry before it cleared the rim.
7. Do every toilet in the building, including any in a bunkie or boathouse.
8. Blow out or drain the supply line and the fill valve, holding the float up as described in the blow-out section.

Then tape them shut. Painter’s tape across the toilet seat and over each sink. It looks faintly ridiculous and it stops a family member using a winterized fixture on the last trip out — which undoes the whole job and puts water straight back into the trap.

11. Appliances

Check the manufacturer’s winterizing instructions for every appliance. These are general principles only, and appliances vary considerably.

Dishwasher

• With air still connected and pressurised, start a cycle and let it run long enough to hear air blowing through the fill valve. That clears the inlet solenoid, which is the expensive part to replace.
• Let the cycle pump out so standing water leaves the sump and the drain hose.
• Pour antifreeze into the bottom and run it briefly again so it reaches the pump, the drain hose and the air gap. Do not skip this — the sump holds water you cannot see.
• Check underneath and behind the dishwasher. The supply line very often runs under the cabinet floor, and that stretch can be the lowest point in the whole kitchen run — which means water collects there and air passes over the top of it. If you can reach the line, disconnect it and drain it properly rather than assuming the blow-out cleared it.
• Leave the door ajar so it dries out and does not go mouldy.

Washing machine

• With air still connected, run the machine on hot and then on cold. There are two separate inlet solenoids and each needs air blown through it. This is the step people miss, and a split inlet valve floods a laundry room in spring.
• Then disconnect both supply hoses and drain them completely.
• Pour antifreeze into the drum and run a short spin so it reaches the pump and drain hose.
• Check the drain standpipe trap and put antifreeze in it.
• Leave the lid or door open.

Refrigerator — and check whether it has an ice maker

• Check whether there is an ice maker or a water dispenser at all. Plenty of cottage fridges have one that has never been used and is easy to forget — but if it is plumbed in, it holds water.
• Shut off and blow out the supply line.
• There are usually two separate solenoids — one for the ice maker, one for the door dispenser — and each must be cycled individually with air in the line to clear it.
• Empty the ice bin and switch the ice maker off at its own switch or arm.
• Empty the fridge and freezer completely, clean them out, switch the appliance off, and prop both doors open. All four steps. A fridge switched off but left closed grows mould that is close to impossible to get rid of, and a fridge left running on an empty cottage is a fire and spoilage risk nobody is there to notice.
• Wedge the doors with a rolled towel or a purpose-made prop so they cannot swing shut over the winter.

Anything else with a water line

Instant-hot taps, humidifiers on a furnace, standalone ice machines, coffee machines with plumbed lines, hot tubs, water coolers. If it has a line, it holds water.

12. Sump pumps

Frequently forgotten, and a frozen discharge line floods the very space the pump exists to protect.

If the sump stays running over winter

• Leave power to it, and know that this power must stay on.
• Make sure the discharge line is clear, and pitched so it drains completely between cycles. Water standing in a discharge line freezes, blocks the outlet, and the pump then runs against a closed pipe until it burns out — while the pit fills.
• Check the discharge point outside is not going to be buried in snow or ice.
• Test the float and the check valve before you leave.
• Consider a water alarm in the pit if the space matters.

If the sump is being shut down

• Unplug it.
• Lift it out of the pit and drain it.
• Drain the discharge line completely, including any outside run.
• Check the pit for standing water and remove it.

13. Wildlife and the building

After water, mice are the biggest cause of winter damage, and they get in through gaps you would swear were too small. A mouse needs roughly the space of a pencil.

Sealing up

• Walk the exterior and look for gaps around pipe and wire penetrations, dryer and stove vents with failed flaps, soffit gaps, gaps where the chimney meets the roof, and daylight under doors.
• Stuff gaps with steel wool, then seal with expanding foam. Mice chew straight through foam on its own; they will not chew steel wool.
• Screen or cap vents not needed over winter — but never block a vent serving an appliance that will run.
• Cap the chimney to keep out birds, squirrels, raccoons, rain and snow, and close the damper.
• Check that crawlspace and foundation vents are as you intend them.

Removing the attraction

• Take out all food. All of it, including sealed packets, tins and spices. Mice chew through cardboard and plastic without difficulty.
• Take home or seal away soft goods that make good nesting material — bedding, towels, cushions, paper.
• Empty and clean the fridge, and leave it open.
• Empty bins and take the rubbish with you.
• Leave cupboard and closet doors ajar for air circulation.
• Get mattresses off the floor, or cover them.

The building itself

• Check every window and door closes, latches and locks properly. Note anything that does not.
• Look at the roof from the ground for anything likely to fail under snow load, and note overhanging limbs.
• Clean the gutters and confirm they drain freely — blocked gutters are a direct cause of ice dams.
• Cover or box in a through-wall air conditioner. A rigid foam box sealed with tape works well and is far easier than pulling the unit out.
• Set a light on a timer; a cottage showing some life is less inviting. A radio on a second timer does no harm.
• A small fan on a timer moves air and reduces the shut-up smell.
• Vacuum through, then note what bag the vacuum takes. The first spring clean is unpleasant and you will want to change the bag afterwards.
• Check that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors have good batteries, or remove them and note it.

14. Outside and the waterfront

Waterfront

• Dock out, or properly secured — pulled up above the ice line, or disconnected and tied off in a protected bay. Ice movement destroys docks left in place.
• Boat lift raised or removed.
• Boat hauled, winterized and stored.
• Ladders, swim rafts, buoys and waterfront furniture brought in.
• Clean up the shoreline. Anything left loose ends up in the lake or in a neighbour’s bay.
• Intake line pulled, drained and stored (see the pumps section).

Grounds

• Patio furniture, umbrellas and cushions stored or covered.
• Barbecue covered, propane tank disconnected and stored outside and upright.
• Downspout extensions directing water away from the foundation.
• Anything that blows around, put away.
• Deal with branches over the driveway or the roof before snow load brings them down — and before a propane truck or a plow cannot get in.
• Mark the septic lids, the well head and the driveway edges with stakes so they can be found under snow.

Tools and equipment left behind

• Fuel stabilised or drained from mowers, trimmers and small engines.
• Batteries removed from anything that will corrode or discharge.
• Spray hand tools with a penetrating oil and wrap them to keep rust off through a damp winter.
• Anything valuable and portable, take it home or lock it away.
• Drain and store hoses, pressure washers and watering equipment.

15. Before you lock the door

Walk through once more and confirm every one of these:

• Every tap open, hot and cold
• Every trap has visible antifreeze in it
• Toilets emptied, antifreeze in bowl and tank, taped over
• Water heater off at the breaker or gas, and fully drained
• Pump breaker off; pump body drained and plugs out
• Pressure tank drained
• Intake line pulled, drained and stored, or well riser cleared
• Treatment equipment bypassed and drained, cartridges out
• Main water off, and the line below the shutoff drained
• Aerators, shower heads and washers bagged together and labelled
• Appliances cleared, doors propped open
• Windows and doors latched and locked
• All food removed
• Nothing plugged in that should not be; anything that must stay live is known
• Thermostat set as intended — off, or at the maintenance temperature
• Photographs taken of every shutoff and valve position

Then write it down. What was done, what was found, what needs attention in spring, and where you left the parts. Next spring you will not remember the detail, and if somebody else opens the place they will have no idea at all. A written record of your property’s systems and procedures is the single most useful thing a cottage owner can have — it is why we build one for every property we look after.

The mistakes that cost the most

• Leaving the water heater energised while draining it. The element is gone in seconds.
• Putting air into a water heater that is still full. You are stirring, not draining.
• Too much air pressure. Above about 40 PSI you are damaging the system, not clearing it.
• Doing only the cold side. There are two lines to every fixture.
• Forgetting the water trapped below the main shutoff. The classic split pipe.
• Not draining the jet pump body. A cracked volute means a new pump.
• Leaving the lake intake line in the water. Ice movement destroys it.
• Forgetting the pressure tank. Several gallons, and it splits.
• Automotive antifreeze. Toxic, and it kills a septic system.
• Leaving a hose connected to an outside spigot. Splits the tap inside the wall.
• Forgetting the sump discharge line. Frozen line, burned-out pump, flooded basement.
• Skipping the water treatment equipment. Softeners, filters and UV chambers are all full of water.
• Not running the appliances while the air is still on. A dishwasher or washing machine inlet solenoid left full of water splits, and you find out when it floods on opening day.
• Missing the low point under the dishwasher. Air passes over standing water; it does not lift it.
• Leaving the fridge closed. Switched off and sealed shut grows mould you will not get out.
• Leaving food behind. You find out in May.
• Half-measures on heat. Heat on with nobody checking is the worst of both worlds.
• Not writing any of it down. Every year starts from scratch, and the knowledge lives in one person’s head.

What to remember for spring

Things you set up now that have to be undone, in roughly this order:

• Aerators, shower heads and washers are in the labelled bag
• Pump drain and priming plugs are in a bag taped to the pump — they go back in before the pump runs
• The tube may still be sitting in the main line
• A rag may be tied on the kitchen sprayer hose
• The intake line needs putting back at the right depth, and the foot valve checked
• The pump needs priming before it is switched on — a dry start destroys it
• The water heater must be completely full before the breaker goes back on
• Filter cartridges and the UV lamp need reinstalling, and the system sanitising
• Toilets have antifreeze in them — flush several times before use
• Traps have antifreeze — run every drain before using the sinks
• Heat trace needs switching back on
• The chimney cap comes off before a fire is lit
• The vacuum bag wants replacing after the first clean
• Water should be tested before drinking, particularly on a well or lake system

Our complete cottage opening checklist covers the spring side in the same detail.

Common questions