Closing a Gilford 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.
Gilford is where the Lakes Region’s seasonal-versus-year-round line gets blurry, and that matters more for plumbing than for any other trade. Down along the shore — Lake Shore Road, Governors Island, the Glendale area — you have serious waterfront houses, many of them originally built as summer places and since converted to year-round with insulation and heat added later. “Converted” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. We regularly find supply lines still running through a crawlspace that was never brought inside the heated envelope, which is fine until the owner leaves for two weeks in January and turns the thermostat down to 50.
Up the hill in Gunstock Acres and the neighborhoods off Cherry Valley Road, it flips: mostly drilled wells, pressure tanks, and a lot of houses that sit empty between ski weekends. Parts of Gilford are served by the Lakes Region Water Company, but plenty of the town is not, and we ask before we assume.
The waterfront brings its own list. Older camps here sometimes still draw from the lake for non-potable use, with a foot valve, a jet pump, and a line that has to come out of the water before ice-in. Boathouses and docks have hose bibs and outdoor showers that need to be blown out. Several Gilford properties are boat-access only, which changes everything about scheduling a repair — we plan those trips, we don’t improvise them.
Gunstock also means one specific winter pattern we see every single year: a family arrives Friday night for a ski weekend, turns the heat up, and finds a split line in the crawlspace that let go three weeks earlier.
If your Gilford place sits empty between weekends, a $40 freeze alarm or a smart thermostat with a low-temp alert is the cheapest plumbing insurance you can buy. Every burst-pipe call we get from the Acres in January started as a heat failure nobody knew about.
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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