Wolfeboro has about two hundred seasonal water connections on the town system and hundreds more camps on wells, and every one of them has to be emptied before the cold. We do it slowly, write down what we did, and come back in spring to turn it on the right way.
Wolfeboro is the one town around here where a good share of the seasonal houses are on municipal water. Water & Sewer Utilities runs 57 miles of main and around 2,400 connections, and about 200 of those are seasonal — cottages along the bays and in the village that get shut off in the fall and turned back on in spring. The town bills them on their own seasonal rate, charges $50 for a disconnect or a reconnect, and wants 48 hours’ notice to do it. That’s a wrinkle you won’t find in Tuftonboro or Alton.
So a winterization in town has two halves. Ours is the house: heater, lines, traps, the outdoor shower, the spigot on the dock. The town’s is the service — and the utility’s own reports talk about maintaining and upgrading seasonal water lines, so if the line your cottage hangs off gets shut for the winter, your closing date has a deadline you didn’t set. We’ll help you sort out which kind of connection you’ve got and who to call before we ever show up.
Out past the served area — the Lake Wentworth and Crescent Lake shores, Rust Pond, North and East Wolfeboro — it’s the familiar well-and-pressure-tank job, and the timing is yours. Most of Wolfeboro shuts down between the last boats coming out at Goodhue and Sawmill in October and the first real freeze. Ice-out on Winnipesaukee was declared April 6 this year; that’s roughly when the reopening calls start.
If your Wolfeboro place is on a seasonal town connection, write the disconnect date on the closing sheet. The reconnect in spring needs the same 48 hours’ notice, and nobody wants to arrive to a dry house on Memorial Day weekend.
On a well we kill the pump, drain the pressure tank, and push air through from the far end of the house back toward the tank. On town water there’s no pump and no tank; the water is under street pressure until the curb stop or the meter valve is closed, and everything downstream of that still has to come out. We close at the house-side valve, open the lowest fixture, then blow the branches out one at a time — lav, tub, kitchen, laundry, the boathouse sink if there is one. Standing water in a horizontal run is what splits copper, and gravity alone never clears it.
Then the heater comes down, every trap and toilet gets non-toxic antifreeze, the filter housing is opened, and the ice maker line is cleared. On a Wolfeboro Bay or Back Bay cottage there’s nearly always something on the dock side: a spigot, an outdoor shower, a rinse station for the boat. Those freeze first, because they’re the most exposed and the last thing anyone remembers.
Last thing is a sheet on the counter — what’s drained, what’s treated, which valves are shut, and whether the town needs a call to reconnect. If the meter’s inside, we note where it is. In April, when you or your caretaker opens the place, the order matters: valves on slowly, someone in the basement listening, heater filled before it gets power.
A Wolfeboro closing generally lands in the $175–$450 range, on town water or a well, with the number driven by how many fixtures and extras the house has. Spring startup runs about the same, and the town’s own $50 reconnect charge is separate from ours.
The town handles the service side and charges $50 per disconnect or reconnect, with 48 hours’ notice. We handle everything inside the foundation wall. Book us first, then call Water and Sewer Utilities for the shutoff — or the other way around, but leave a day between them so the house isn’t drained while the street side is still live.
Mid-October through early November, once the boats are out and before the first hard freeze. January lows here average around eleven degrees, and a cold night in late October is common. If you’re a weekend-only owner, closing right after Columbus Day is safer than gambling on one more visit.
You can, and for a place you’ll use in ski season that’s usually the right call. But it’s only as good as your furnace and your power, and most homeowner policies want the house held at 55 degrees or the water shut off if it’s vacant. Add a low-temperature alarm that calls someone, and still drain the dock side.
Yes, and we’d rather do both ends. Opening means water on slowly, a walk of every fixture under pressure, the heater filled before power, and a look for anything the winter moved. If you closed with us, we have the sheet and know what’s charged. If someone else closed it, we start from scratch.
It does — foot valve, hose, and pump if there is one, before ice-in. Wolfeboro Bay and Back Bay freeze solid, and a line left in the water gets crushed. This is the item most often skipped on a do-it-yourself closing, and the one we find split in May.
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