# Winterizing a home-- help



## plumberdave101 (Mar 23, 2014)




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## PLUMB TIME (Feb 2, 2009)

turn off water and drain as much with gravity as possible
open all faucets and flush toilets
drain wh
disconnect wash hoses and supply to dishwasher solenoid (if applicable)
close all faucets and stops to toilet(s). wh drain
connect compressor to cold water boiler drain at wash machine
fill system and wh with 40 psi, may take a little while I use a 3 gallon pancake,takes about 5 min.
open each individual faucet till nothing but air
turn on stops to toilets and let go till nothing but air
spray hose on ks,don't forget.
1 gallon af in wash machine spin cycle to circulate
1gal in dishwasher drain cycle to circulate
start dishwasher to open solenoid and release vac
all water out of toilets,af to fill bowl trap
af in all traps
if city supply, off at street,disconnect meter and 1/4" tubing into main as far as possible and blow out.
well, remove all drain plugs
I have signs to alert anyone that system has been winterized


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## SchmitzPlumbing (May 5, 2014)

in addition to the above, i also disconnect toilet supply because of anti siphon fill valve. leave all ball valves 1/2 open so the valve body around the ball doesnt crack. i also dump anti freeze in the toilet tank. just enough to cover the rubber parts, flapper, tank bolts and gasket on fill valve so they dont dry out.


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## PLUMB TIME (Feb 2, 2009)

SchmitzPlumbing said:


> in addition to the above, i also disconnect toilet supply because of anti siphon fill valve. leave all ball valves 1/2 open so the valve body around the ball doesnt crack. i also dump anti freeze in the toilet tank. just enough to cover the rubber parts, flapper, tank bolts and gasket on fill valve so they dont dry out.


Ditto on above. Never had a problem with Ballcocks or supplies when using air. To each his own.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Pretty good to do list Plumb Time... :thumbup:

One exception I'd make is if you have a whole bunch of them to do it would be a good idea to trailer around a big rotary screw compressor...

There is no substitute for air volume....:yes:

Just pull the meter and hook it up there...
Blow everything out under pressure...


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

How long does it take to do this?


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

I used to do about 6 a day back around 2005.. for 150 each.. then the bottom fell out and they cut the pay down to nothing so we dropped it all.....
(my best day was 9)

the easy way to do it is to get a pancake type air compressor that goes to 150 psi and leave it in your truck.... 

then go to harbour freinght and buy a 150 foot long air hose and get the little hand held air sprayer and attach a laundry hose to the end of it......
Its good to have it on somethign like a garden hose reel to its easy to pull out and reel back in....

you drain everything down to the meter first then go around to all the faucets , take the areators off and and put that hose into the faucet and BLOW....

it works great... you dont have to get the last drop out of the heater or even all the lines , all you got to do it blow most of it out...

of course you throw pink anti freeze into all the traps in the house and some into the dishwasher.....

its a pretty easy gig and I wish we still had the volume cause I still got about 150 gallons of antifreeze sitting in my shop.....


what are they paying you to do this??


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## saysflushable (Jun 15, 2009)

Good list but I don't use gravity. I hook up the compressor at any hose bib without back flow and get the water heater drained first. then use the water heater as a air tank so I have volume blow the house out.


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## mrjasontgreek (May 21, 2014)

Depending on where you are, you may NEED to worry about getting every last drop out I the lines. The company I used to work for actually had a transfer pump and a bucket of acorn fittings and pieces of old poly-b that they would use to isolate the water heater, hook into the hot and cold mains at that point and pump the whole system full of antifreeze. Start it up and flow each fixture until you see pink. You could do a typical house with less than 10 gallons of antifreeze and it was FAST.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

mrjasontgreek said:


> Depending on where you are, you may NEED to worry about getting every last drop out I the lines. The company I used to work for actually had a transfer pump and a bucket of acorn fittings and pieces of old poly-b that they would use to isolate the water heater, hook into the hot and cold mains at that point and pump the whole system full of antifreeze. Start it up and flow each fixture until you see pink. You could do a typical house with less than 10 gallons of antifreeze and it was FAST.


 

filling the lines with antifreeze was never cost efficeint for this regoin... especially now that they are only paying the mexicans about 65 bucks a house..... :laughing::laughing:

 then someone would not flush out the lines good enough in teh spring and leave pink in the system, it took days to get the taste out of the water......

I wonder what they charged to fill the water lines with antifreeze....

 that in my opinion is overkill....


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## plumberdave101 (Mar 23, 2014)

Thank you everyone for the great tips! Better results than I thought I'd get. I get $100 per hour. Seems like a standard house would take 2-3 hours so $200-$300 per home.


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## mrjasontgreek (May 21, 2014)

In Indiana it probably is overkill, here it might save you thousands. I've thoroughly blown out houses and had spots where a bit of water settled back into a low spot and split lines. I've seen toilet bowls filled with antifreeze split. Last year was one of the coldest winters we've had in years and there were a lot of places that have never had problems that had major freeze ups


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## plumberdave101 (Mar 23, 2014)

Should you leave the faucets open or closed? How do you bleed out the ice maker and refrigerator?


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## plumberdave101 (Mar 23, 2014)

So if you winterize and a pipe splits or toilet cracks am I going to pay for this? Or are there loopholes?


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## mrjasontgreek (May 21, 2014)

I always found that with compressed air, short bursts and pauses worked best. It allows any water in the line to collect and move with the air. I always make three passes through the whole house and make sure there's no moisture left. I leave everything open, another guy at our shop closes everything and leaves air pressure on the lines. That way in the spring he knows if there's a problem


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

plumberdave101 said:


> So if you winterize and a pipe splits or toilet cracks am I going to pay for this? Or are there loopholes?


Only if you are willing to take on the liability of the cost of a whole house repipe on a couple of hundred dollar job...:laughing::no:

Someone pours water down a drain after I poured antifreeze in it...
Should I have liability? :no:

The plumbing system of a home was not designed to be drained by gravity, I am making a best effort to avoid freezing damage to the home. Should I have liability? :no:

We had a bank call us to winterize a home in their possession without heat since July. They were making the call for service in February. Should I have liability?:no:


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## Dpeckplb (Sep 20, 2013)

I do the air compressor thing. I usually take out the shower valves if they come apart easily. Most of the ones I've winterized are cottages with piston pumps. So I always pull the bottom of the casing off the pump. I usually will try to get some anti freeze down the suction line.


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## SchmitzPlumbing (May 5, 2014)

the idiots around here that do them for the bank suck. let it drain by gravity to wherever it can. dump antifreeze, put your stupid paper on everything possible saying its winterized and leave. i have been to 20 places this year turning water back on for the banks realitor and get to fix leaks and broken fixtures on every house. if the customer is buying it as is, i only have to get water up to the valve after the water meter and the rest is the housewarming gift for the new owner:laughing:


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## Dpeckplb (Sep 20, 2013)

SchmitzPlumbing said:


> the idiots around here that do them for the bank suck. let it drain by gravity to wherever it can. dump antifreeze, put your stupid paper on everything possible saying its winterized and leave. i have been to 20 places this year turning water back on for the banks realitor and get to fix leaks and broken fixtures on every house. if the customer is buying it as is, i only have to get water up to the valve after the water meter and the rest is the housewarming gift for the new owner:laughing:


Yeah. Except here our banks want the waterlines fixed. There have been afew places that are two story and they want new waterlines with minimal drywall being cut. Gets really interesting.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

SchmitzPlumbing said:


> the idiots around here that do them for the bank suck. let it drain by gravity to wherever it can. dump antifreeze, put your stupid paper on everything possible saying its winterized and leave. i have been to 20 places this year turning water back on for the banks realitor and get to fix leaks and broken fixtures on every house. if the customer is buying it as is, i only have to get water up to the valve after the water meter *and the rest is the housewarming gift for the new owner*:laughing:


 

Amen to that.... they took the work away from the realtors and gave it all to nartional chains that claim to know how to winterize a home for 65 bucks.....:laughing::laughing:

we have seen it hundreds of times where the new home owner just waives their right to have the house "air tested for leaks" and just buys the place "as is"" 

and of course they plan on moving into their dream home this weekend.....:thumbup::thumbup:

I had one this week who would rather gamble on a two story house being ok rather than pay me 350 bucks to pressure test the home with air to look for leaks....

have not heard back from him so its his risk and gamble...


SCREW this kind of work, I am so totally over it....


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Redwood said:


> Only if you are willing to take on the liability of the cost of a whole house repipe on a couple of hundred dollar job...:laughing::no:
> 
> Someone pours water down a drain after I poured antifreeze in it...
> Should I have liability? :no:
> ...


Exact same thing happened to me,called me to winterized a house after the cold weather was over with:laughing:


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

sparky said:


> Exact same thing happened to me,called me to winterized a house after the cold weather was over with:laughing:


Some very stupid people have way more money than they deserve... :laughing:


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## Coolcanuck (Jan 30, 2012)

Redwood said:


> Some very stupid people have way more money than they deserve... :laughing:


Anyone can buy what they need from a hardware store if there's a problem... 9 pm Friday night, phone is ringing.


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## Dpeckplb (Sep 20, 2013)

People who winterize the house them selfs because it stupid to pay us to do what they can do. Then have a leak and call and expect us to drop everything on Friday night to repair and get their water on. I love the response when you tell them it will be double time, they usually say no until they realize that the hardware store is closed. 
The reason it's double time is because most cottages are scabbed together pos's.


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## MACPLUMB777 (Jun 18, 2008)

Dpeckplb said:


> Yeah. Except here our banks want the waterlines fixed. There have been a few places that are two story and they want new waterlines with minimal drywall being cut. Gets really interesting.


What are the water pipes copper,cpvc, or pex ? :whistling2:


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## plumberdave101 (Mar 23, 2014)

JERRYMAC said:


> What are the water pipes copper,cpvc, or pex ? :whistling2:


Copper


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

sparky said:


> Exact same thing happened to me,called me to winterized a house after the cold weather was over with:laughing:


 

I dont accept any liability on any of this junk we winterize.....

I have done the same thing before.... 

 The bank forgot to winterize a house and we went out after the blizzard hit and attempted to salvage what we could...

the water heater was frozen solid, and so were the toilets..... I just basically did a walk through for fun
poured a litttle pink antifreeze in the drains and toilets ......
Turned on the heat so it could thaw out ,,,, made a damage assesment for the bank,,,

The good part of the deal came when they needed it all repaired and paid me about 6k to re-do the whole home so they could sell it..... 

the Water heater was still frozen solid...:laughing:


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## Dpeckplb (Sep 20, 2013)

JERRYMAC said:


> What are the water pipes copper,cpvc, or pex ? :whistling2:


A mix of all 3 with some rad or garden hose mixed in. Usually they don't properly winterize the pump either. So they cobble a jet pump to their old snd point and wonder why they get nothing but sand.


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Redwood said:


> Pretty good to do list Plumb Time... :thumbup:
> 
> One exception I'd make is if you have a whole bunch of them to do it would be a good idea to trailer around a big rotary screw compressor...
> 
> ...


Red,in my area the meter is on a loop and has two Union type brass nuts front and back,what do you use to fit that meter loop nut or is your area different???


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## mrjasontgreek (May 21, 2014)

The way water services are done here you don't stand a chance of winterizing them. They have two lines coming in from the street tied together with a circulator between them, the meter comes off with a tee. If the water stops, it freezes. Permafrost. I was wondering how they got water to the houses up here. Some of the older places use a Venturi buried underground to suck the water around in a loop, others have a heat tracer, and some just have water trucked in and sewage trucked out. If the power goes out for more than a few hours everything comes to a grinding halt up here.


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## BC73RS (Jan 25, 2014)

mrjasontgreek said:


> They have two lines coming in from the street tied together with a circulator between them, the meter comes off with a tee. If the water stops, it freezes. Permafrost. I was wondering how they got water to the houses up here. Some of the older places use a Venturi buried underground to suck the water around in a loop,


Extraordinary, thought I heard or seen it all.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

sparky said:


> Red,in my area the meter is on a loop and has two Union type brass nuts front and back,what do you use to fit that meter loop nut or is your area different???


We just have a line in and line out...


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