Closing a Sanbornton 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.
Sanbornton spreads over a large, hilly, thinly settled piece of ground between Winnisquam and the Tilton valley, with a scattering of village clusters and a lot of houses at the end of long driveways. There is no municipal water supply serving the town at large; portions of Sanbornton fall inside the regional sewer program’s service area, but the working assumption on nearly every service call here is a drilled well, a pressure tank, and a private septic system.
Elevation and exposure make the winters here harder on plumbing than the numbers alone suggest. Houses on the open hillsides off Hunkins Pond Road, Shaw Hill, and the Bay Road ridges catch wind that strips snow cover off the ground, and bare frozen ground drives frost deeper than snow-covered ground does. A well line that comes into an unheated basement or through a crawlspace is exposed in a way a valley house isn’t.
The housing is old and it’s been added to. Sanbornton has genuine eighteenth-century farmhouses with stone foundations, and generations of ells, sheds, and additions bolted onto them. Plumbing in those buildings tends to run through spaces that were never meant to be heated — the back ell, the shed bathroom, the room over the unheated garage.
Then there’s the seasonal share: camps around the ponds, and second homes that sit empty stretches of the winter. Same rules as everywhere else on the lake — drain it properly or leave real heat on it, and don’t split the difference.
Sanbornton loses power more than the village towns do, and no power means no well pump. Keep a few gallons of water stored for flushing, and if you’re gone in winter, know that a multi-day outage means no heat and no way to drain the system remotely.
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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