First-time questions on winterizing

[Nick Brubaker]

Hi everyone,

I managed to get my first house rented this year (I'm a renter myself).  We just hit a cold snap here in Atlanta (temperatures hovering around 25F).  While there is a tenant currently living in the house, are there things I still need to do to protect the plumbing or anything else?  

I looked around a bit on line, but most instructions were for circumstances where the house is vacant.  One reason I started thinking about it is someone told me they put covers on their outside faucets (even though they live in the house) to protect them from bursting.  Was wondering how necessary that or other precautions might be.  

Thanks!

[Gail K.]

Your box of filters should tell you how often these need to be changed.  We provide tenants with a years supply (12 filters) and encourage them to change them monthly explaining doing so will help with their heating (and more importantly in the south) cooling costs.  We show them where and how to change them, putting a new one in as an example.

It's not unusual after a year of living there, there are still 11 in the box.

By the way....if you get calls from tenants living in the south that their air won't come on (and it's not because the batteries in the thermostat have died)....it's not unusual that the unit has frozen up due to a dirty filter.   We had two of those this summer;  nothing that my HVAC guy could do with a block of ice until things melted.  In both cases the filters were completely filthy (one of the tenants had the bright idea of cut wood for a shelf in the house so the filter was clogged with sawdust).

Some landlords give up attempting to train tenants on something as simple as changing filters (and, admittedly, it's easy to forget to do this) and simply make it a point to stop by monthly for smoke alarm checks and filter changes.

Gail