An occupied house reports its plumbing failures immediately — someone hears the spray, sees the drip, feels the cold spot. A vacant house reports nothing until someone opens the door in March. Winterizing a home that will sit empty is cheap insurance against the most expensive discovery in real estate. Here are both approaches, honestly compared.
Option A: heat-on minimum (the partial measure)
Leaving heat at 55°F with water on is the low-effort path, and for short absences it's reasonable — with hardening: open cabinet doors on exterior-wall plumbing, have someone physically check the house weekly (insurance policies often require it for vacancy — read yours), and install a wifi thermostat or freeze alarm that reports temperature. The risk it doesn't cover: furnace failure during a cold snap, which converts the whole house to unheated with the water system fully charged. For absences past a few weeks in deep winter, this option is hope with a thermostat.
Option B: full drain-down (the real winterization)
Shut the main (or the well pump), then open every faucet — hot and cold, top floor to bottom — letting the system drain to the lowest point; open the lowest valve or boiler drain to evacuate what remains. Drain the water heater (power/gas off first, always), flush toilets and sponge tanks dry, and drain any appliance lines. Then protect the traps: every drain trap and toilet bowl still holds water that can freeze and crack the fixture — pour plumbing antifreeze (propylene glycol, the pink RV type, never automotive) into every trap, every toilet bowl and tank, the dishwasher and washer per their manuals.
The items everyone forgets
Exterior spigots (drain from their interior valves), the washing machine's own pump and hoses, water softeners and filters (bypass and drain), boiler-fed systems (a separate conversation — hydronic heat changes the whole plan and usually means keeping heat on), refrigerator ice maker lines, and the sump pump's check valve area. Also: photograph the meter reading at shutdown; an unexpected reading at reopening is your leak detector.
Reopening in spring, and who should do this
Reopen slowly: close every faucet you opened, restore the main gradually, then walk the whole system listening — a split that happened despite everything announces itself now, while you're standing there, instead of into a closed house. A confident homeowner can execute all of this; a house with a boiler, a well, or complexity deserves a professional winterization, which costs a fraction of one burst-pipe claim. Lumin Drain NJ winterizes and reopens vacant homes across New Jersey: 929-662-1816.