On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:12:07 -0500, LSMFT wrote:

Closing a house in the northeast next winter. I will shut off the heat.
I know I have to drain the plumbing, baseboard up stairs and put rv
fluid in the drains. What about the boiler in the basement? Will the
basement in an unheated house freeze? It gets 20 below zero here but the
basement is tight and normally 72 degrees with the heat on. The washer
is also in the basement. So what do others do in the north?

Our place sat empty over an entire winter in northern MN before we bought
it - as far as I know the previous owners just drained the plumbing
completely and left it at that. Power was shut off. I don't believe
anything special was done to the drains, either (although the outdoor run
to the septic system isn't particularly long).

Someone did come and check on it every couple of weeks, so it's possible
they turned the power back on and ran the electric heaters up, but I'm
not sure how much that'd help vs. just keeping the place on tickover
anyway.

We've got no heat in the basement, but it seems to stay at around 55F
year-round no matter what the outdoor temperature - I'm not sure how much
further it'd fall if the place were left unheated though (the couple of
times we visited prior to buying, the owners had run the furnace up
beforehand). I suspect it'd stay above freezing, but possibly not by much.

cheers

Jules