How to Close Up Your Vacation Home for Short or Long Periods, Step by Step

How you use your vacation home affects its energy consumption. Do you use the house year-round, only on weekends, or do you shut it down for periods of time? Here, energy advisor Line Nørmark from SparEnergi guides you on how best to shut down the house in a way that saves energy and suits the amount of time the vacation home is not in use.

“It’s important to think about what you can do when you’re not using the vacation home. And how often do you leave it unused? Is it for a week at a time, or perhaps for half a year? How should you handle the times when the vacation home stands empty? Because obviously, when we’re not using the vacation home, it shouldn’t be left on and using a lot of energy,” says Line Nørmark.

If you’d like to be able to return within 24 hours

“You might not know when you’ll be back, but if you’d like to be able to return within 24 hours—then you can turn off the hot water heater. And then you can turn the temperature down to 8 or 12 degrees while you’re away. That way, you’ll save a lot on your electricity bill,” explains Line Nørmark.

Also listen to the podcast episode “How to Tackle the Energy Crisis as a Summer House Owner” with Line Nørmark

If you use the house year-round, but primarily on weekends

If you have a vacation home that you use year-round, primarily on weekends, and you’re away for five weekdays when you’re not necessarily at the vacation home, do the following:

1. Empty the refrigerator and freezer. Defrost them. Leave the doors open and unplug them. “That alone saves a lot of energy, because those are the appliances that use a lot of electricity.”

2. Turn off all electrical appliances. This includes your modem, computer, TV, and even your kitchen appliances. “You might have a toaster that’s actually using some electricity while it’s plugged in, or a microwave—you can often tell it’s on by the little display. And if a light is on, well, it’s using electricity. So turn off all appliances or unplug them if they can’t be turned off.”

3. Turn off the electric water heater. “This is an appliance that can use a lot of electricity because it has to stay at 55 degrees. Just make sure that when you get back, you turn it up to 60 degrees for a short while and then back down to 55 degrees.”

4. Turn the heat down to 8–10 degrees. “If it’s a period when it’s cold outside and you have the heat on, you should turn it down. If you’re coming back, as we’re discussing here, keep it at 8 degrees. That way, you can be sure no pipes will burst and that the place will remain frost-free. And you’ll have a base temperature in the vacation home for when you need to heat it up again. We recommend keeping it between 8–10 degrees if you’re not completely shutting down the vacation home. Also, be sure to ventilate the house well before you leave so there isn’t any moisture inside while it’s closed up.”

If you’re shutting down the vacation home completely for an extended period

If you only use the vacation home during a specific season—for example, in the summer—and the vacation home will be empty for an extended period, be sure to shut it down properly. Follow steps 1–3 above, and also make sure to:

1. Drain all the water. “The most important thing is to drain all the water. It’s not enough to just drain the sink, the kitchen sink, and the shower—there’s also water left in the toilets. So everything must be drained to prevent freeze damage. That’s one part of it—and the other is making sure to air out all the moisture, or at least as much as you can. So be sure to ventilate thoroughly before you leave the vacation home and turn everything off.”

2. Turn off the heat completely. “If you shut down the vacation home completely and have drained all the water pipes, you can easily turn off the heat. As I said, just remember to ventilate thoroughly beforehand so there’s no moisture in the house—or at least as little moisture as possible. Because it’s when we use the house—cooking, taking showers, and breathing—that moisture builds up in our homes,” says Line Nørmark.

3. Check on the house every now and then. “It’s a really good idea to check on your summer house every now and then during this period. Fortunately, we’re seeing that many people are installing air-to-air heat pumps in their summer houses, which is a huge cost-saver, and they have this great feature that lets you turn them on from home. And that means that if you see a really bitter frost coming and you live a bit far from your vacation home, you have the option to just turn on the heat on those days when the frost is there,” explains Line Nørmark.