- 18 hours ago
12 Amish things to do before the first hard freeze can save you from frozen pipes, roof leaks, dead batteries, and a winter full of preventable problems. Elias Yoder lays out a practical cold-weather checklist built from Amish home wisdom, starting with the jobs that truly have a deadline: remove the hose from the outdoor spigot, find and test the main water shutoff, protect pipes in cold spaces, and clean the chimney before the first fire.
From there, he moves through gutters and downspouts, grading the ground away from the house, stacking firewood the right way, checking carbon monoxide alarms, storing tools and liquids that should not freeze, and preparing food, water, light, and heat for a power outage. He also covers livestock, older neighbors, and the small exterior fixes that become big trouble once the ground hardens. The tone is plainspoken, homestead-focused, and rooted in Lancaster County farm life.
This is useful winter prep, Amish living advice, homestead maintenance guidance, and cold-weather home protection for anyone who wants a simple seasonal checklist. It also fits searches for winterizing a house, preventing frozen pipes, chimney and gutter maintenance, emergency preparedness, and practical off-grid or country living tips.
From there, he moves through gutters and downspouts, grading the ground away from the house, stacking firewood the right way, checking carbon monoxide alarms, storing tools and liquids that should not freeze, and preparing food, water, light, and heat for a power outage. He also covers livestock, older neighbors, and the small exterior fixes that become big trouble once the ground hardens. The tone is plainspoken, homestead-focused, and rooted in Lancaster County farm life.
This is useful winter prep, Amish living advice, homestead maintenance guidance, and cold-weather home protection for anyone who wants a simple seasonal checklist. It also fits searches for winterizing a house, preventing frozen pipes, chimney and gutter maintenance, emergency preparedness, and practical off-grid or country living tips.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is a morning coming, and you do not know which one it is.
00:03You will come down, and the grass will be white and stiff,
00:07and the puddle in the lane will have a lid on it,
00:10and the ground will have gone hard as a road overnight.
00:14And every job you meant to do outside this autumn,
00:17you will now be doing in the cold, or badly, or not at all.
00:22That is the part nobody tells you about getting a place ready for winter.
00:27It is not that the jobs are difficult,
00:29most of them are an hour each, and a child could do half of them.
00:33It is that they have a deadline, and the deadline does not announce itself,
00:38and some of them simply cannot be done after that morning arrives.
00:44I am Elias Yoder. I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
00:49When the weather turns hard here, nobody is coming out to help us,
00:53and nothing is getting delivered, and we have known that our whole lives,
00:58so the autumn is a working season rather than a quiet one.
01:02I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:08The book is the long version. If you want it, it is there.
01:12I will not mention it again.
01:15My grandmother taught me this with a list on the back of the pantry door,
01:19and she taught it by not saying a word.
01:22That list went up every September. Jobs down the left in pencil,
01:28and as each one got done, she drew a line through it,
01:32and by the end of November, the whole page was crossed out.
01:37I thought it was fussiness.
01:39I was fifteen or so, and I had reached the age where a boy knows what wants doing
01:44without being written at.
01:46That year I let two of them go, the grading round the back of the house,
01:52which wanted a half day with a shovel, and draining the line out to the trough.
01:58I meant to do them. I kept meaning to do them.
02:02The freeze came the second week of October, three weeks early,
02:07and it came hard, and by morning the ground was iron, and the line had split.
02:14She did not say one word to me about it, not one.
02:19She simply did not cross those two off.
02:22And that list stayed up on the back of that door,
02:26with two jobs on it in pencil that I could no longer do anything about,
02:31right through to the spring.
02:34Every job has a last day, and nobody tells you which one it was.
02:40Now let me give you the twelve, and I am putting them in the order of what you lose
02:45if you leave them, rather than what is easiest.
02:491. The outside tap.
02:51And this is first for a reason.
02:54If there is a hose still attached to the tap on the outside of your house,
02:59go and take it off today.
03:01That one thing causes more burst pipes than anything else on this list,
03:07every winter, in every state.
03:10The reason is that a hose holds water,
03:14and a connected hose stops the tap draining,
03:17so the water sits up in that pipe and freezes
03:21and splits it inside the wall where you cannot see it.
03:25Then in March, it thaws,
03:28and the first time somebody turns it on,
03:30water is going into the house.
03:33So, hose off.
03:36Then, if you have a shut-off valve for that line inside the house,
03:41usually in the cellar near where the pipe goes out,
03:44turn it off, and then open the outside tap,
03:48and leave it open all winter,
03:50so anything left in there has somewhere to expand to.
03:54And if the line has a little drain cap on the inside valve,
03:58open that and catch what comes out.
04:02And while you are at it,
04:03do the same with any irrigation line,
04:06any line out to a barn or a trough,
04:09and the tap at the back of the garage
04:11that nobody has used since July.
04:15Those are the forgotten ones.
04:17The one by the front door gets remembered
04:20because people walk past it.
04:222. Know where your main water shut-off is
04:27and know that it turns.
04:29Not roughly.
04:31Exactly.
04:33Go and put your hand on it today.
04:35Because if a pipe does let go in January,
04:39you have about 90 seconds
04:41to decide whether this is a wet floor
04:44or a new ceiling downstairs.
04:46And that is not the moment
04:48to be learning where a valve is
04:51or finding that it has seized solid.
04:54Turn it off and on once
04:56while nothing is wrong.
04:59If it will not turn,
05:00deal with that now
05:02while a plumber can get to you easily.
05:05And tell everybody in the house
05:07where it is.
05:093. Pipes in cold places.
05:12Anything running through an unheated cellar,
05:15a crawl space,
05:16a garage,
05:17or against an outside wall.
05:19Foam sleeves cost very little
05:21and go on in minutes.
05:23And if you have a run
05:24that has frozen before,
05:26that is the one.
05:27A pipe that froze once
05:29will freeze again in the same place
05:31because nothing about its situation
05:33has changed.
05:34And know what to do
05:35if one does freeze,
05:37because it is not obvious.
05:39Open the tap that pipe feeds
05:42so there is somewhere
05:43for it to go as it thaws.
05:45Then warm the pipe
05:46from the tap end backwards,
05:48gently,
05:49with a hair dryer
05:50or hot cloths.
05:51Never a flame,
05:53never a torch,
05:54never anything burning.
05:56Working from the far end first,
05:59traps melt water behind ice
06:01with nowhere to go,
06:02and that is what splits a pipe
06:04that had survived the freeze.
06:074. The stove and the chimney.
06:10Swept and looked at
06:11before the first fire,
06:13not after the third.
06:14I have talked about that
06:16at length elsewhere,
06:17and I will not go over it again here,
06:19except to say that the man
06:21who sweeps in October
06:22gets an appointment,
06:24and the man who rings in December
06:26does not.
06:27Check your carbon monoxide alarm
06:29the same day.
06:31Press the button.
06:32Put a date on it.
06:345. Firewood and the mistake
06:36is nearly always the same one.
06:39Wood wants to be off the ground
06:41on something,
06:42covered on the top only,
06:43and open at the sides
06:45so the air goes through it.
06:47A tarpaulin wrapped right round a stack
06:50holds the damp in,
06:51and you will be burning wet wood
06:53in February
06:54and wondering why the chimney
06:55is tarring up.
06:57And get a week's worth
06:58close to the door now.
07:00There will be a night
07:01when you do not want to cross
07:03a yard in the dark in weather,
07:04and a basket by the stove
07:06on that night
07:07is worth a great deal.
07:09And look at what is leaning
07:11against the house.
07:12Timber,
07:13a stack of pallets,
07:14a pile of bags.
07:16Anything piled against a wall
07:18holds damp there all winter
07:20and gives mice a staircase
07:22into your siding,
07:23and the time to move it
07:25is before it is frozen
07:26into the ground.
07:286. Gutters and downspouts.
07:31Clear them.
07:32Every one.
07:33A gutter full of leaves
07:35does not simply overflow.
07:37In winter it fills,
07:39freezes,
07:40and makes a dam of ice
07:41at the edge of your roof,
07:43and the meltwater
07:44coming down from above
07:45has nowhere to go
07:46but back up under the shingles
07:48and into the wall of your house.
07:51That is where a good many
07:52of those stains
07:53on upstairs ceilings come from,
07:55and it starts with leaves
07:57in a gutter in November.
07:59Check the downspout
08:00as carrying water
08:01well away from the foundation
08:03while you are up there.
08:04And have a look at the trees
08:06while the leaves are off
08:07and you can see
08:08what you are doing.
08:09Any dead limb
08:11hanging over the house,
08:12the drive,
08:13or a line
08:14is a limb that comes down
08:15under snow and ice.
08:17That is the one job
08:19on this list
08:20I would have a man in for
08:21rather than attempt myself,
08:23and October is when he can come.
08:267. The ground against the house.
08:29The soil round your foundation
08:31should fall away from the wall,
08:33not toward it.
08:35If there is a low place
08:36where water stands
08:37against the house,
08:39this is the week
08:39to put a barrow of soil there
08:41and slope it away.
08:43Because once that ground freezes,
08:46you are not moving it
08:47until April,
08:48and every thaw all winter
08:50is water running
08:51toward your cellar wall.
08:538. The grit and not salt.
08:57Have something for the steps
08:58and the path
08:59before you need it,
09:00not after.
09:01A bucket of sand,
09:03a bucket of fine gravel,
09:05or the wood ash
09:06out of your stove,
09:07kept dry
09:08and somewhere you can reach it
09:10without crossing the ice
09:11to get it.
09:12Grit does not melt anything,
09:14and that is rather the point.
09:16It gives you your feet back,
09:18which is all you actually wanted,
09:20and it does nothing
09:21to your steps or your steel.
09:23I have talked elsewhere
09:25about what salt does
09:26to concrete
09:27and to anything metal,
09:28and I would keep it
09:29for the worst days only.
09:329. The things that must not freeze.
09:35Go round whatever outbuilding
09:37or garage
09:38or unheated porch you have
09:40and look at what is standing
09:42in there in a container.
09:44Paint will be ruined
09:45by a hard freeze,
09:46and you will not know
09:48until you open it in the spring.
09:50So will a good many glues
09:52and some cleaners.
09:53Jars of anything wet
09:54will crack.
09:55A battery left
09:56on a cold concrete floor
09:58does itself no good at all.
10:00Half an hour carrying things
10:02into somewhere
10:03that stays above freezing
10:04saves a surprising amount
10:06of money,
10:06and nobody ever thinks
10:08of it until April.
10:09And drain and put away
10:11what the weather will take.
10:13Hoses coiled and under cover,
10:15the mower run dry
10:16or stabilized,
10:17garden tools cleaned
10:19and wiped with an oily rag,
10:21the watering cans
10:22turned upside down
10:23so they do not fill
10:24and crack.
10:26Clay pots empty
10:27or indoors
10:28because a pot full
10:29of wet soil
10:30freezes and splits
10:32every time.
10:3410. Light and warmth
10:36that do not depend
10:37on anything.
10:39Lamps filled
10:40and wicks trimmed.
10:42Candles and matches
10:43somewhere you can find
10:44them in the dark,
10:45which means
10:46not in a drawer
10:47you have to cross
10:48a room to reach.
10:49A torch in the same place
10:51every year.
10:52And whatever you heat with,
10:54enough of it laid in
10:56that a week of bad weather
10:57does not worry you.
10:5911. Food and water
11:02in the house,
11:02and I will keep this short
11:04because I have given it
11:05a whole video of its own
11:07elsewhere.
11:08Not a cellar full.
11:09A week of what you
11:11actually eat
11:12and water set by,
11:13and I have talked
11:14about both of those
11:15elsewhere in more detail
11:17than I can give here.
11:18The thing to add
11:19is the bit people forget,
11:21which is a way
11:22to cook it
11:23and a way to open it
11:24that does not need power.
11:26A tin opener
11:27that turns by hand
11:29costs a dollar or two
11:30and a great many kitchens
11:32no longer have one,
11:33and there is nothing
11:34sillier than a cupboard
11:36full of food
11:36you cannot get into.
11:38And a few things
11:39that need no cooking
11:41at all
11:41for the evening
11:42when you have
11:43neither power
11:43nor patience.
11:45And know how you
11:47would manage
11:47without the things
11:48that stop.
11:49If the power
11:50goes in a storm,
11:52what gives you heat,
11:53and is it safe
11:54to run where it is,
11:55and have you
11:56a carbon monoxide
11:57alarm near it?
11:58If the water goes,
12:00what have you got?
12:01If the road is shut,
12:03how many days
12:04are you good for?
12:05You do not need
12:07an answer that
12:07would satisfy a soldier.
12:09You need to have
12:10thought about it once
12:11in October,
12:12sitting down,
12:14rather than for the
12:15first time in the dark.
12:1712.
12:18The Animals
12:19and the People
12:20Water is the whole
12:22of it with stock.
12:23Feed is easy,
12:24and water is the job,
12:26because a trough
12:27freezes every night,
12:28and an animal
12:29that cannot drink
12:30goes down fast.
12:32Know how you are
12:33going to do that
12:34before the first freeze,
12:36and not on the
12:37morning of it.
12:38More bedding
12:39than you think,
12:40and shelter out
12:41of the wind,
12:42which matters
12:43more than warmth.
12:44And the People
12:45If there is somebody
12:47on your road
12:48living alone,
12:49or old,
12:50or not well,
12:51go and knock
12:52before the weather,
12:53and again during it.
12:55That is the oldest
12:56item on this list,
12:57and the one
12:58that has gone
12:58out of the world
12:59fastest,
13:00and one that
13:01costs nothing,
13:02and nobody does.
13:04Walk round the
13:06outside of the house
13:06once, slowly,
13:08looking at nothing
13:09in particular.
13:10Loose siding,
13:12a cracked pane,
13:13a gutter hanging,
13:14a step gone soft,
13:16a gap under a door
13:18where something
13:18could get in
13:19out of the cold.
13:21Everything on that
13:22walk is small
13:23in October,
13:23and large
13:24in January,
13:25and the walk
13:26takes ten minutes.
13:28We do it the day
13:29after the first
13:30frost warning
13:31every year,
13:32and it is the
13:33single most useful
13:34ten minutes
13:35of the autumn.
13:37Now, the order,
13:38because this is the
13:39part that actually
13:40matters,
13:40and the list above
13:42does not show it.
13:43Some of these jobs
13:45have a hard deadline,
13:46and some do not.
13:48The ground,
13:49the grating,
13:50the gutters,
13:51the outside tap,
13:52the chimney,
13:53anything on a roof,
13:54and anything
13:55needing a tradesman.
13:57Those are the ones
13:58with a last day.
14:00Do them first,
14:01and do them now.
14:03The ones inside,
14:04the pipe sleeves,
14:06the lamps,
14:07the food,
14:08the torch,
14:08you can do in December
14:10in your slippers
14:11if you must.
14:12So if you only have
14:13one Saturday,
14:15spend it outdoors
14:16and on the telephone,
14:17and leave the indoor work
14:19for a wet evening.
14:20And one thing
14:22about doing it at all,
14:23since October
14:24is a busy month,
14:25and this is a long list,
14:27you will not do all of it.
14:30Nobody does all of it.
14:32My grandmother's list
14:33had things carried over
14:34to the following year on it
14:36more often than not,
14:37and she was the most
14:38organized person
14:39I have known.
14:40What matters
14:41is the first four.
14:42The hose,
14:43the shut-off,
14:44the chimney,
14:45and the gutters.
14:46Those four are an afternoon
14:48and a telephone call,
14:50and they are where
14:51nearly all of the trouble
14:52actually comes from.
14:54If you do nothing else
14:55this autumn,
14:56do those.
14:58One more,
14:59and it belongs
14:59with the list
15:00rather than on it.
15:02Write down
15:02who you would call.
15:04The plumber,
15:05the man who sweeps
15:06the chimney,
15:07the fellow with the tractor
15:08who clears your lane,
15:09the power company.
15:11On paper,
15:12by the telephone,
15:13not only in a device
15:15that may be flat.
15:16Half of what goes wrong
15:18in winter
15:18is not that nobody
15:19could help.
15:20It is that at nine at night
15:22in a storm,
15:23with a floor filling up,
15:24nobody in the house
15:25could lay their hand
15:26on a number.
15:28Now the plane limits.
15:30Not all of this
15:31applies to everybody.
15:32If you rent,
15:33half of it is somebody
15:35else's to do,
15:36and your job
15:37is to tell them
15:37in writing and early,
15:39and to do the parts
15:40that are yours.
15:42If you are in a mild place,
15:44some of this
15:44is not your weather.
15:46Take what fits.
15:48And none of this
15:49is a reason to panic
15:50or to spend
15:51a great deal of money.
15:52There is a trade
15:54in frightening people
15:55in October,
15:55and I want no part of it.
15:57Most of what I have given you
15:59is free
16:00or costs a few dollars,
16:01and the whole of it
16:02is an afternoon
16:03and a telephone call.
16:05There is no scheme
16:07in any of this,
16:08and nobody arranged anything.
16:10The money simply
16:11runs the other way.
16:12The emergency plumber
16:14in January
16:15charges what he charges
16:16because he is out in it
16:18at two in the morning,
16:19and he has earned it.
16:21It is only that
16:22nobody makes a living
16:24telling you
16:25to go and take
16:25a hose off a tap
16:27in October
16:27so nobody says it,
16:29and a thing
16:30nobody has a reason
16:31to say
16:31gets forgotten
16:32inside of one generation.
16:35What got lost
16:36was not a product.
16:37It was a list
16:39in pencil
16:39on the back
16:40of a pantry door
16:41and a woman
16:42who did not have
16:43to say anything at all.
16:45So here is what
16:46I would have you do today,
16:48and the first part of it
16:49takes four minutes.
16:51Go outside
16:52and take the hose
16:53off the tap.
16:54Then come in
16:55and write your own list.
16:57On paper,
16:58on the back of a door,
16:59where you will see it.
17:01Everything on this video
17:03that applies to your place
17:04in your handwriting.
17:06And cross them off
17:08as you do them
17:09because the crossing
17:10off is the point.
17:11A list in your head
17:13is not a list.
17:14It is a worry.
17:16So tell me in the comments
17:18which one of these
17:18you had forgotten entirely
17:20because there is always one
17:22and it is different
17:23for everybody.
17:24And if you have told me
17:26your county before,
17:27tell me this instead.
17:29When does your first
17:31hard freeze usually come,
17:33and has it ever
17:33caught you out early?
17:35Next time,
17:36I want to go to the thing
17:37underneath half of this
17:39because water
17:40is the trouble in winter
17:41and a well with no power
17:43in it is not a dead well.
17:45There is a way
17:46to draw water
17:47out of a cased well
17:48with a length of pipe,
17:50a cap,
17:51and a rope,
17:51and it costs very little
17:53and it works
17:54the day the pump stops.
17:56Every job
17:57has a last day
17:58and nobody tells you
18:00which one it was.
18:01The people who built
18:03this country
18:03with their hands
18:04knew that
18:05and we are only
18:06just starting
18:07to remember it.