Winterizing a Vacant Home

Vacant Home Insurance Now provides free information and advice for homeowners that have a vacant or empty home, and need to purchase vacant homeowners insurance. When someone places vacant homeowners insurance, certain things need to be done for the policy to remain in effect and not be cancelled. The empty house needs to be maintained to a certain standard of care. Let's examine winterizing an empty home.

Winterizing is essential for a vacant or empty home. Frozen pipes is one of the top 3 causes of homeowners insurance claims for a vacant or unoccupied home. In the Mid-West, or North-East a homeowner has two choices:

1. All the pipes can be drained of all and any water, and this would allow the heat in the house to be turned off or turned very low to save on energy. Pipes can freeze in a home even if the heat is set to 60 degrees or higher depending on the outside air temperature, how close the pipe is to the outside air, and how much insulation is on the pipe and in the wall between the pipe and the outside air. In most cases we recommend some heat be left on in the house. Having the inside air in a house below freezing is not a good idea and can weather and destroy more than just the pipes.


2. One can leave water in the pipes but keep the heat above 60 degrees to be safe. A frozen pipe with a pipe burst can destroy a home if the damage is left untreated and water on in the house turns to mold and mildew. If the heat in left one, someone should come to inspect the empty house once every week or so.

The owner of a vacant home insurance policy has the responsibility of making sure the house is property winterized, or if the insurance company can prove a reasonable degree of care was not achieved, the vacant home insurance company can deny the claim.