3 Days Away from Home - Water Help Recommendation

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Don't let your house freeze, like the others have said, there's a lot of places that water is still going to hide once you think it's empty. I also doubt it's even set-up to be properly drained / winterized with blow-out fittings to hook the compressed air up to and really clear the lines.
Also agree with the fact that if you ran your burner out of oil and let an empty tank sit for some time, it'll probably need a "service" at the very least the furnace will need to be primed prior to firing (google your make and model for instructions on that)
Personally I would use it as my Ace up my sleeve as a perfect reason to avoid the in-laws over the holidays. If that's not an option, you may consider buying a freeze thermostat switch :
http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovato...=1387316633&sr=8-1&keywords=freeze+thermostat
and plugging your heater into that in the basement near the pipes, oh, and make sure your homeowners insurance is paid up.
 
Can't always rely on electricity either. There could be a power outage for what ever reason and your best made plan regarding the oil furnace might never happen.
When we leave the house for a while we plan on losing power but hope we never do. Turn off the water down in the basement. Drain all the water in your pipes by running faucets etc. Pour a little automobile window washer fluid in the toilet tanks. Flush them and add a little more as they refill. Now the tanks and any traps down stream are taken care of. When you come home just turn the water back on. No harm no foul.
 
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Shutting the water off and draining is not the answer. As a plumber, I can tell you that your piping (water lines) have low spots, trapped areas and bellies that you can't see most of the time. These will freeze despite your efforts. Letting your faucets drip is also not a good idea. Suppose the drain backs up, or freezes.
I would not trust an electric heater of any kind to run while I was not going to be home for a couple of days, frozen pipes could be the least of your problems.
The only sure fire answer here is to keep the house from getting cold enough to freeze in the first place, if that means buying oil, then so be it. Like others have said, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Of course if you want to support your local plumber, I'm sure they will appreciate the work!
Happy Holidays!
 
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If you absolutely must turn off all heat, I will offer you this "possible" solution (assuming no responsibility of course)
Get yourself about 6-10 gallons of RV antifreeze, a 5 gal. bucket, a wash machine hose and some sort of pump that will fit in the bucket with hose threads.
Turn the water off. Open all faucets, hot and cold sides. At the lowest point in the house, connect one end of the hose to the pump and the other to, say, a laundry tub faucet, or wash machine connection or anything with a hose thread. Shut off and drain the water heater, you don't want all the A/F to go into the heater.
Fill the bucket with anti-freeze and turn on the pump. Go to each faucet, lowest first working your way up, and when you see the anti freeze coming out, turn that faucet off and continue to the next. Do this until you get to the highest point in the house. You will need to do this on the cold and hot lines. This will force the residual water up and out of the system. You will still need to pour antifreeze in all toilet bowls, tanks and sink drains.
I have done this in commercial sized buildings. It is tedious and not a Guarantee you still won't have problems.
 
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Most local oil companies will not give a new customer oil on credit so he will be out of luck there. Draining the lines, as stated by many, is not the answer. There may be water somewhere that you can't drain out. Pipe freezes and bursts? You want to talk about expensive. Wow. Best solution thus far is 20 gallons of fuel oil from your local gas station that has it. Set the thermostat to 50 degrees and you will be fine. I see you are from PA like me, keep that in mind fellas he is not in Canada. Unless it gets record setting low here, you won't even use that 20 gallons with your thermostat set at 50 degrees.
 
Camco also makes a hand pump for winterizing RV's the same way. (Walmart in the RV section) Did it for years and guaranteed the system. I did homes for banks as well. Once drained, it's best to bypass water heater if there are no shut offs on it. Otherwise antifreeze goes into heater. Pump from highest faucet in house down through cold side first. (rubber hose to faucet with dishwasher fitting if need be) and have second person go to each cold faucet until pink runs out each one. flush toilet and make sure pink enters ball valve when tank is empty. Then pump down hot side from one faucet to all others. Be sure to leave a tea cup full in each drain trap. Whoosh some antifreeze in toilet bowl so you know the toilet trap and bowl is protected. Don't forget outside faucets when you're doing the cold side. You can drain the pink back out when done, it doesn't need to be left in lines. (air doesn't freeze) and if you recover A/F in a jug reuse for drains.
Amazing how easy water pumps when warm, and below 40 it thickens becoming hard to pump. I did so many, I used a plastic battery box from a trailer tongue and mounted a Shur-flo RV pump on the side of it. Using a 12 volt motorcycle battery in the box gives enough room for a gallon of antifreeze in the box. It has a switch to run pump, and I added a plug for a remote switch to be able to connect pump and go around the home myself running the pump from other rooms at faucets. I kept it after retiring in case I need to winterize an empty rental home now.
Fridges with ice makers, dishwashers and washing machines are other things to consider that need to be turned on their fill cycle to get hot or cold water through. RV antifreeze is OK to mix 50/50 with water, so it's fine if it mixes in low spots diluted with water in line.
You can't leave it outside since it will actually freeze and needs to be warmed up for use. No worry, It's formulated not to expand as it freezes. The hundreds my wife and I did every year in October carried us over the winter months since most of our RV customers had us do their units every year and didn't use their RV all winter slowing the business down until spring. Don't miss that part of the business one bit. Ordering a skid of antifreeze each year, freezing hands in cold RV's and the alcohol in the solution dries your skin day after day soaking your hands with it.
I had ONE call back in over 20 years. Customer thought they had a bathroom faucet leak in the spring. The faucet I pump from I remove the aerator and connect my pump hose with a dishwasher adapter. When done, I cross threaded the aerator on the faucet spout and it's something you can't check when done.
 
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Back in the 90's I drained this barn a few times when we were going to be out of town for a week or more in the middle of winter. Works fine if you remember to drain the water heater, and remember to let it get full again when you come back into an Igloo when you get home before turning the breaker back on. Forgot that the last time and thought of it in the one second it took for the elements in the water heater to fry. <>

Biggest problem is that it will take the wood stove a day to get everything in that house warmed back up and you will probably end up firing the crap out of the oil burner anyway to help it out. And use as much oil as it would have set low while you were away.

Leave it to the oil burner and come back to a warm, uneventful entry into your house.
 
coaly said:
Camco also makes a hand pump for winterizing RV's the same way. (Walmart in the RV section) Did it for years and guaranteed the system. I did homes for banks as well. Once drained, it's best to bypass water heater if there are no shut offs on it. Otherwise antifreeze goes into heater. Pump from highest faucet in house down through cold side first. (rubber hose to faucet with dishwasher fitting if need be) and have second person go to each cold faucet until pink runs out each one. flush toilet and make sure pink enters ball valve when tank is empty. Then pump down hot side from one faucet to all others. Be sure to leave a tea cup full in each drain trap. Whoosh some antifreeze in toilet bowl so you know the toilet trap and bowl is protected. Don't forget outside faucets when you're doing the cold side. You can drain the pink back out when done, it doesn't need to be left in lines. (air doesn't freeze) and if you recover A/F in a jug reuse for drains.
Amazing how easy water pumps when warm, and below 30 it thickens becoming hard to pump. I did so many, I used a plastic battery box from a trailer tongue and mounted a Shur-flo RV pump on the side of it. Using a 12 volt motocycle battery in the box gives enough room for a gallon of antifreeze in the box. It has a switch to run pump, and I added a plug for a remote switch to be able to connect pump and go around the home myself running the pump from other rooms at faucets. I kept it after retiring in case I need to winterize an empty rental home now.
Fridges with ice makers, dishwashers and washing machines are other things to consider that need to be turned on their fill cycle to get hot or cold water through. RV antifreeze is OK to mix 50/50 with water, so it's fine if it mixes in low spots diluted with water in line.
You can't leave it outside since it will actually freeze and needs to be warmed up for use. No worry, It's formulated not to expand as it freezes. The hundreds my wife and I did every year in October carried us over the winter months since most of our RV customers had us do their units every year and didn't use their RV all winter slowing the business down until spring. Don't miss that part of the business one bit. Ordering a skid of antifreeze each year, freezing hands in cold RV's and the alcohol in the solution dries your skin day after day soaking your hands with it.
I had ONE call back in over 20 years. Customer thought they had a bathroom faucet leak in the spring. The faucet I pump from I remove the aerator and connect my pump hose with a dishwasher adapter. When done, I cross threaded the aerator on the faucet spout and it's something you can't check when done.
Click to expand...


Like I said, Pump from bottom up. "Forces" water out. Top down and it takes path of least resistance, missing low or trapped points along the way.
 
Like I said before get oil. I am sure you can get 100 dollars worth of oil and set it to 50 degrees and make a nice fire before you leave and you should be good to go for 3 days only.
 
Yes, if you're not familiar with how to leave a summer home that is not used over winter months, it's much easier leaving heat low for a short time. Forgotten sodas explode in the cupboard, shampoo and conditioner gels..... when leaving heat low, open cabinet doors to allow heat into cabinets where water lines and liquids are stored. Also the fridge is not an absolute thermostat meaning it's setting is xx amount of degrees colder than indoor air temperature. Drop your inside temps 20 degrees and the fridge temp also drops that much. Freezing everything from eggs to liquids inside. So you can set it for "warmest" setting so the differential temp thermostat keeps it about the same inside.

eg; I blew them with air first, so there wasn't much water in them. I needed to pressure test first to be able to guarantee the system anyway. We always pumped down since you're pumping against the gravity head pressure from a few stories below. I found the glycol mix we used was fine to mix with what water was in low spots and never had a problem. My competition carried gallons and gallons of antifreeze in a tank in their truck and drug hoses around to fill the entire system. Heater and all, then drained it back out to reuse in the next ! Of course they didn't have any break, but I could do 3 with my battery pump kit to their one. I can't imagine the nasty sediment in their tank from draining back heaters and tanks for reuse. Must of had a screen on their suction line..... yuck, not in my pipes.
 
Like many have stated.....get a few gallons of fuel oil and Make darn sure the heater works....NOW....before you leave....
 
All of the worries about draining a house are zip. I turn off the breakers, open up the lowest outside hose bib in this 2,500 sq. ft. barn and flush the toilets and the whole thing goes out into the yard. Except for the water heater that gets dumped into the sump pump.

There is a lot more room left in the pipes for freezing expansion than anything left in traps and pipes need.

But just because I have done it numerous times and it works. Don't do it. Just turn down the thermostat and have a good, worry free holiday.
 
With the plumbing runs in our house that wouldn't work. There are lots of water traps and mis-sloped runs that won't drain. But if the water is off at least I wouldn't have a flood to return home to.
 
For $50 worth of diesel you can save yourself a lot of hassle and worry. Set at 50 you won't use much diesel.
 
weatherguy said:
For $50 worth of diesel you can save yourself a lot of hassle and worry. Set at 50 you won't use much diesel.
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Jeff, this is definitely what I would do. Letting your house go cold is more complicated than just your pipes freezing. Appliances don't run right, wood moves like crazy, you may see large gaps in your kitchen cabinets that were there before. 10 gallons of diesel is more than enough to get you through. Even if just to avoid the chore of bringing the house up to temp from a frigid 40* to a comfortable 70*. Good luck! Have a merry Christmas!
 
I take care of summer homes for a living you may also see cracks in the sheetrock, wood floors moving etc. Houses are vulnerable to a lot of ugliness when allowed to run cold. Its obviously not the end of the world, but the forty bucks for diesel will provide a much lower risk of hang ups.
 
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I'd buck up for the fuel. I'm about as poor as they come but paying a plumber to do a lot of copper work will likely run a lot less than some oil etc. When I plan to leave town when it's freezing cold I'll have the baseboard going, the heat tape for the water supply line, and my infrared heater going just in case.... I've had a few plumbing bills over the past year since I bought my house and even though my plumber is beyond reasonable, it's still not cheap in any sense.
 
Can't speak to any pipes freezing, although my experience is it needs to be close to single digit temps for that to be a possibility. I want to remind you to figure out a way to warm up your stone-cold chimney BEFORE you start another fire.

I get my Dad set up in FL every January, and when I come back home to my freezing OH basement and start a fire, the chimney runs backwards and floods the basement with smoke. It gets me EVERY TIME! This year, I'm going to try lighting about four or five candles in there for 30 minutes before I put any kindling in, and then I'll feed it wood shreds that burn brightly until I'm convinced that a draft has started.
 
This is quite typical in a basement install due to the positive and negative pressure in the home being warmer upstairs than downstairs. Essentially the home acts as the chimney and uses the chimney as a means to replace cold air particles that are being warmed and sent upstairs. I like the candle idea! Might just work
 
RockyMtnHigh said:
This is quite typical in a basement install due to the positive and negative pressure in the home being warmer upstairs than downstairs. Essentially the home acts as the chimney and uses the chimney as a means to replace cold air particles that are being warmed and sent upstairs. I like the candle idea! Might just work
Click to expand...

I guess I ought to clarify that the draft is running in the direction I'd prefer it to!;) My neighbors are probably going to wonder if I'm burning sandlewood... I'll find two or three of those 3-wick variety and hopefully it won't be a toot in a hurricane, so to speak.
 
Sorry, started my own thread in the DIY room with similar question.
 
If you shut off your water you need to kill the breaker to the hot water heater too I believe. I heard it burns out the elements if you don't.
 
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