This turned out to be a stressful day.

We're responsible for several buildings. Among them is a cottage that we rent on AirBnB in the summer, and a boathouse with an apartment attached that my sister uses on occasion.

For several years we've paid to have them properly winterized. Our plumber drains all the water from the system and blows it out with an air-compressor, then pours antifreeze into the traps. I suppose it's something I should learn to do for myself. Until then it's quite an expense to have it done, and then we've got to have the systems turned back on in the Spring.

This year we thought we might like to have the buildings available for use year-round. We didn't think it would cost much to leave the heat on at a low level and to leave the taps dripping on extremely cold days. The wife put a little propane heater in the cottage (more work for our plumber!) and I figured it would be good to give the boathouse apartment furnace some use. It hasn't been turned on much over the past decade, and leaving any kind of machine idle for that long can't be good for it. (I had to pay to have the little reset-button sensor replaced.)

At least the oil company said there's no harm in using the ancient oil that's lingering in the tank.

Well, wouldn't you know it: it's not even January, and New England's getting hammered with some record breaking cold. It looks like we won't see a minute of thaw in two weeks at least, and our nights are plumbing the arctic depths of -2 F (-20 C) temperatures.

Last night the pipes froze up under our rented house.

While our tenant was smart enough to deploy some electric heaters this morning and get the water flowing before the pipes could break, this meant that the dripping taps in the cottage weren't dripping, so of course the cold-water line to that sink seized up too.

I was able to get the water flowing in the cottage again by sticking an electric heater under the sink, and jamming a hair-drier through a hole in the wall. I had to let them both run for several hours. Eventually the water came back on, and at least none of the pipes burst.

Meanwhile the boathouse apartment just got overwhelmed by the brute force of the cold.

It turns out some of the pipes run precariously close to some un-insulated exterior walls. Good grief.

The apartment thawed out more quickly, but one of the soldered joints let go and started spraying the basement stairs with water as soon as it did. So I had to unplug the well pump and let the system drain as well as we can manage, leaving the heat on a little higher while we wait for our plumber to come by and fix the place properly.

And of course our plumber is up to his neck in broken pipes and emergency patches, so I could wind up keeping that place warm for a while, to no real purpose.

It looks like keeping the places going in the winter was a false economy. We're going to have both places winterized after all, so we don't have to lie awake worrying about them.

Lesson learned, I guess. In New England, if you aren't living in a house, it's best just to shut it down and forget about it until Spring.

Except for the taxes. You've still got to remember to pay the taxes.

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Do you have a lot to worry about in the winter? Do you think it's worthwhile - or safe - to pick up enough amateur plumbing skill to winterize a property?

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