What Does 'This House Has Been Winterized' Mean?

If you're looking to buy a house these days you may see many vacant ones, especially in the lower price ranges. Often, you will see signs at the sinks and toilets, warning you not to use them because the water has been shut off.

Signs like the one in the photo. (The name of the 'winterizers' has been blurred for reasons you'll understand if you look closely.)

Here between Denver and Boulder, as in most parts of the country, winter temps get cold enough to freeze pipes. To avoid that, property managers 'winterize' the property by turning the water off at the street, emptying the hot water heater and the pipes, and filling the traps with antifreeze.

This makes inspections and appraisals difficult, as property managers don't want to have to pay a plumber to *un-winterize the property, then re-winterize it until the new owner takes over.

And yet, the water must be on for a complete inspection, and for a valid appraisal. So the potential buyer often gets stuck with this expense of re-winterizing, and the agent gets to try to make the scheduling work so it doesn't have to be done twice.

So it seemed odd to me as I was unlocking the door of a vacant house last week, to see water dripping from the front outdoor faucet. Assuming the property hadn't been winterized yet, I went on in and then noticed the sign in the photo above, strapped across the sink.

Never one to believe something just because a sign says so, I tried the tap. Sure enough, the water was still on. I checked a couple of other faucets too with the same results.

So these guys got paid to winterize this house, but all they did was put up these signs!

Turned out that my client wasn't interested in buying this house, but if they had been I would have kept a close eye on how well it was (or wasn't) being maintained through the cold weeks ahead.

(*'Un-winterize' may not be a real word, but it is in fact easy enough to do. Just turn the water on. That isn't what incurs a cost, re-winterizing does because the property manager wants it done by a plumber.)