JUMP TO: 13 Tips for Winterizing Your Summer Home | Contact Lloyd Security to Secure Your Vacation Home
If you have a summer cabin, you know every fall that it’s time to prepare your cabin for winter. Doing so can help you avoid a host of problems, and it keeps your residence in good condition until it’s ready for use when the warm months come around. This article will provide you with tips for winterizing your cabin so you can avoid a mess when you arrive next spring.
13 Tips for Winterizing Your Summer Cabin
When winterizing a cabin, you must complete numerous tasks both inside and outside. Many of them will help prevent water from freezing and seriously damaging your house. Learning the ins and outs of how to winterize a summer home can help you complete these tasks. To prepare your summer home for winter, consider these 13 useful tips on how to winterize a cabin:
1. Clear Your Gutters
When winterizing your summer home, the first thing you should do is clear your gutters. This allows rainwater, melting snow and ice to flow away from your house instead of creating ice dams. Water can also seep into the walls and ceilings from the gutters, causing expensive interior damage.
2. Prepare Your Water Heater
Determine if your water heater is propane or electric. If it’s propane, turn the water heater’s settings switch to “vacation.” If your water heater is electric, go to the main electrical service panel and find the breaker marked “water heater,” then turn it off.
3. Shut Off Your Water
According to one insurance source, one in 50 homeowners filed water damage insurance claims between 2013 and 2017, with an average of claims over $10,000. To avoid paying this price, safeguard your home from potential sources of water damage. Locate and turn off the main water valve. Leave your faucets open to release any water that could freeze and cause breaks. To winterize your summer home, drain all your toilets and tanks. Then, pour non-toxic marine antifreeze into the toilet bowls and drains. Doing this will prevent frost breaks. Some cabin owners have a maintenance agreement with a local plumber to drain the water system using a compressor. They then reopen the system in the spring. These agreements usually involve a guarantee against frozen pipes.
4. Turn Off Non-Essential Circuits
Fires can develop in electrical circuits as well as from appliances, even if they are not turned on. To prevent trouble, identify and carefully mark all non-essential circuit breakers in your home’s electrical box. These are any components other than your heating system, security system and outdoor lighting. Turn these non-essential circuits off and unplug all appliances.
5. Drain Your Dishwasher
To prepare your second home for winter, you’ll also need to drain your dishwasher. Close the door to your dishwasher and then turn it on for just a few seconds. This will activate the dishwasher’s solenoid. Activating this component allows any water left in the line to drain and prevent the solenoid from freezing over.
6. Open Your Blinds
Your first inclination is to close all blinds in your cabin. Closed blinds suggest valuables inside — leave them open instead. If you are going to leave some electricity on during the winter months, use inexpensive light timers set on different schedules.
7. Discourage Mice and Small Animals From Entering
Mice and other animals need food to survive, so clean out your refrigerator. No food smells mean no small animals! If you have a fireplace, remember to cover the flue or chimney. This can prevent bats from making a winter home.
8. Avoid Leaving Valuables Lying Around
Bring home valuables like exercise equipment, DVD players, computers, televisions and other items. Alternatively, put them away in a locked area where they cannot be seen from the windows.
9. Avoid Leaving Tools Lying Around Outside
Just like with hiding your valuables, protecting your tools is a crucial way to winterize a cabin. Thieves are opportunists. They will use tools such as hammers and axes to break into a cabin. Put all your tools away in a locked area.
10. Get Insurance for Expensive Belongings
Keep good insurance on your property, boats, mowers and ATVs. If possible, store these items out of sight in a secure shed. Avoid leaving the keys to these outbuildings in your cabin. Doing so could enable a burglar to easily access these structures. As an extra precaution, photograph valuable belongings and create a list of serial numbers.
11. Inform the Neighbors
In cabins, there are often one or two neighbors that stay year-round. Let them know when you will be gone and provide them with phone numbers should they see any suspicious activity. Some law enforcement agencies will provide routine drive-bys for additional security.
12. Install Outdoor Video Surveillance
Video surveillance systems are an important part of comprehensive security solutions for businesses, office buildings and retail stores. As you can imagine, they’re also a valuable feature for homes, especially those left empty many months of the year. The primary purpose of a video surveillance system is to deter burglars and other criminals from targeting your property, although it also serves the following purposes:
- It collects evidence: This is useful to police following a break-in or other type of incident.
- It protects you legally: You’ll be protected from liability issues if there’s a trespasser on your property.
- It may lower your insurance: You may pay less on certain insurance policies if you install a video camera system.
13. Invest in a Home Security System
If you want ultimate peace of mind, we recommend you install a home security system. A home automation system is preferable because it offers more security features, allows you to automate various processes and lets you monitor and control connected products. All of this can happen from the convenience of your smartphone. Some benefits of a home automation system include:
- Get remote access: You can access home security cameras to check on your property during the winter months, as well as during the summer when you’re not there.
- Control the locks: You can remotely activate the locks on your doors and windows to let guests in or lock up the house after you leave.
- Monitor for potential dangers: With a home automation system, you can also monitor for fire, floods, carbon monoxide leaks and various other emergencies.
- Control your thermostat: You can maintain your thermostat remotely, which is especially important in the wintertime to ensure it doesn’t get too cold and your pipes don’t freeze. A smart thermostat also has several other convenient features, such as the capability to create maximum and minimum settings. This is useful if you have children who may play with the settings and make the temperature cooler or hotter than necessary.
Contact Lloyd Security to Secure Your Vacation Home
Lloyd Security is a Minneapolis-based company with over 50 years of combined experience in the security system industry. We provide a variety of reliable services and products to give property owners more peace of mind. If you’re planning to winterize your vacation home and would like to simplify the process with one of our products, reach out to us for a free quote.