Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Wise words about preventing burst pipes

Dave:

Here's what we would do to the place in Wisconsin when we were done deer hunting and shutting the place down. It would be closed up and the heat turned off from Thanksgiving to April.

Drain Water Softener tanks. (they had a petcock on the bottom of them, and they sat on a bed of gravel in the basement so it could drain to the soil.)
Drain Water heater
Pull plug/drain well pump
Drain all water lines in the house (had drains in the basement to allow us to do that).
Flush toilets to drain water, then use wet/dry vac to suck out water.
There were 3 sinks in the place, 1 dishwasher, 2 bathtubs, 2 toilets. We would use between 2 and 3 gallons of RV anti-freeze and pour that in all the "P" traps and drains to prevent them from freezing. We would pour it in everything that had a drain. Tubs, sinks, toilet, dishwasher, etc. Even the wash machine.

One year the owner forgot to drain the water softener tank that held the beads in it. That spring when they opened the place the fiberglass tank was burst from the pressure of the water freezing and expanding.....

We never had a problem using the RV anti-freeze.