Closing a Alton camp or lake house for the winter, or opening it back up in the spring — done methodically, documented in writing, so nothing gets missed and nothing splits in February.
Alton Bay is the seasonal heart of the town — the tightly packed camps and cottages around the bay, the Christian Conference Center campus, and the shoreline lots off Mount Major Highway. Much of that housing was built as summer property on small lots, close together, and it shows in the plumbing: shallow water lines, minimal insulation under floors, and supply runs that were never designed to see a New Hampshire January.
Move up Route 28 or out toward Alton Mountain Road and Roberts Cove, and you’re into year-round homes on drilled wells with real basements. Further out toward New Durham and Barnstead, the lots get big, the driveways get long, and the frost gets serious — well lines that come in shallow through a slab or crawlspace are the first thing that freezes when the ground gets cold and there’s no snow cover to insulate it.
Alton also has a meaningful stock of camps that have been quietly converted to year-round living over the last twenty years, usually a room at a time. Those are the houses we get called to in the middle of a cold snap. The heat is fine, the insulation upstairs is fine, but the original water line still runs through a crawlspace with a vent that’s been open since 1972.
Boat-access and shorefront work is a real part of the job here too, and the same rule applies as everywhere on the big lake: once the bay starts to skim over, the window for waterside work is closed until spring.
If your Alton camp has a crawlspace with foundation vents, close and insulate them before the first hard freeze — and check that a previous owner didn’t already stuff them with something that fell out. Open crawlspace vents are the most common cause of frozen pipes we see in this town.
Shutting down a seasonal house properly is not turning off a valve and opening the faucets. On a well system the pump is shut down, the pressure tank drained, the pump line relieved, and the whole distribution system blown out with compressed air at low, controlled pressure — because water left standing in a horizontal run is exactly where a pipe splits. Water heaters are drained. Every trap gets non-toxic RV antifreeze: sinks, tubs, showers, floor drains, and each toilet, with the tank and bowl emptied and treated.
Then the list nobody remembers. Whole-house filters and water softener tanks hold water and crack. Ice makers have a supply line and a reservoir. Dishwashers and washing machines hold water in the pump housing. Outdoor showers, dock hose bibs, boathouse sinks, wet bars, and irrigation zones all need to be drained separately. On a lake-draw system the foot valve and line have to come out of the water before ice-in.
We finish with a written record of what was drained, what was left charged, and where antifreeze went — so whoever opens the house in the spring, including a different person entirely, knows exactly what they’re walking into.
A standard Lakes Region camp winterization typically runs $175–$450 depending on the number of fixtures, whether it’s a well or town supply, and the extras (filters, softener, irrigation, boathouse). Spring startup runs similar. Booking both together is the way most owners do it.
Aim to be done by the end of October. The first hard freeze in the Lakes Region can arrive in early November and does not wait for your schedule. Waterfront and private-road properties should book earlier still, because access gets harder once the roads soften or the snow starts.
You can, and for a house you visit in winter it is often the better choice — but it is only as reliable as your power and your furnace. Most homeowner policies require a minimum interior temperature, commonly 55°F, or a shut-off water supply in a vacant home. If you leave heat on, add a low-temperature alarm so a heat failure does not become a burst pipe you find in April.
Water softeners and whole-house filter housings, ice maker lines, dishwasher and washing machine pump housings, and outdoor showers or dock hose bibs. All of them hold water, all of them crack, and none of them drain when you open the faucets. A written fixture list is the only reliable fix.
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