OPENING THE CABIN:

When you arrive at the cabin, you will have a choice of two entrances to use - either the kitchen door or the entrance slightly behind the house via the walkway to the wood shed. 

If there is snow at the kitchen door, your best option is to walk to the left of the cabin, pass the kitchen door and window, to the wood door leading to the wood shed behind the house. The outer door should be fairly easy to get open with little to no shoveling and is not locked. Inside the shed it may be icy, so be very careful. Once inside, you will see a door to the main house, for which you also have a key. 

Note: Several snow shovels are inside the red "garden" shed behind you. This shed also has a dutch door, so you should be able to open the top half of the door and reach the shovels just inside.

Once inside the cabin, you will need to turn on the heat, the water heater, and the water.

WATER:

To turn on the water, you will need to go into the downstairs bathroom. On the floor in front of the toilet is a small trap door in the floor. Open this door and you will see the water valve handles. These control the flow of water into and out of the house. There are three handles deep in the box, at ground level. Two red handles and on green handle. The red handle closest to the living room is the main water valve, which is the main water supply for the cabin. There are also 2 drain valves, Drain Valve # 1 is red, and just to the left of the Main Water Valve and Drain Valve #2, which is green and on the right side of the box. These valves drain water from the house so that it will not freeze while the cabin is vacant. There is also a yellow handled valve that sends water to an outside hose bib (this stays off in the winter).

When you first come to the cabin, the water supply will be OFF and the house will be DRAINED. The Red Main Water Valve will be perpendicular to the pipe and the drain levers will be open and parallel to the pipes. Step 1 is to close the Red and Green Drain valves (#1 &2) by turning them clockwise 1/4 turn. This closes the drains and stops water from running out of the house. Then open the main water supply handle by turning it clockwise 1/4 turn as well, this will open the main water into the house and you should hear water flowing into the faucets in the house. 

Once you have done this, you will notice that the water is running in all of the sinks and showers. You will need to turn them all off, including in the upstairs bathroom, and the two toilets will be running. PLEASE, after all faucets have been turned off, make sure to go back to the valve box and listen for any running water by putting your head close to the box. Once all the faucets are off there should not be any noise of water movement through the valves. If you hear running water then make sure that the drain valves are completely shut. 

The valves are deep in the box and may be hard to reach. There is a T-handle in the water box, which can be used to turn the handles if you are not able to reach them. If you use the T-handle, please leave it in the left corner of the box for the next person.

The image below shows how the valve will look when you arrive at the cabin and the arrows indicate which way you will need to turn the handles in order to turn the water ON.

The image below shows how the valves should look when you have completely turned ON the cabin water system and opened the main water valve and closed the two drain valves.

When you LEAVE the cabin to close it up please move all the valves into the position they were in when you arrived, which will look like the first picture above. AGAIN, please make sure that you completely close the Main Water Valve so that no water is running through it and listen carefully for any running water. If you can hear water running after the house is completely drained, then the main water Valve may not be totally closed.

The water drains and toilets will need to be winterized when you leave. Please get the anti-freeze from under the kitchen sink and put 1/2 cup into all the drains in the house once the water has been turned off. Flush the toilets and pour 1/2 cup into the bowls and the back of the toilet as well.

HEATER:

There is a wall heater on the wall as you enter the kitchen. Turn the small nob clockwise to turn on the heater. Please turn the heat down when you go out for any extended period of time, and remember to turn it completely off when you leave.

**Note that the wood stove is a much better way to heat the cabin. The heater is good for getting the chill out when when you first arrive, but the Wood Stove is the way to keep the cabin warm for the time that you are there. Once the wood stove is cranking you can turn off the wall heater.

WATER HEATER:

Immediately inside the woodshed passageway door, to your right, there are two cabinet doors in the wood paneling. The one closest to the kitchen houses the water heater. Turn the dial on the top of the control box to ON. You should hear the whhoop of the flame coming on to heat the water, if not the pilot may be out - to check you can look behind the white metal flange at the base of the heater to see if the flame is on, it will be obvious. It should have been on PILOT, and you will return it to PILOT when you leave.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

WOOD STOVE:

Wood, kindling and paper are stored on the left of the stove. Additional wood is stored in the wood shed through which you entered the house. Here are some tips for the wood stove.

LIGHTING THE STOVE:

First, stack kindling on a healthy stack of crumpled paper - but don't light it yet. Next, you must create a draft up the flue to draw the smoke from the fire up the chimney rather than into the cabin. Do this by sticking some lightly rumpled paper on the shelf in the stove just under the flue. Light the paper on the shelf and then light the paper under the kindling. Then close the doors to the stove and make sure that the vents on the bottom of the stove are wide open. This will create a strong draft that will light the fire quickly. Once the kindling is firing then you can add more wood.

FOR BEST HEATING:

The wood burning stove works best when it is closed, so keep the doors closed unless you are adding wood. To control the heat output from the stove, open or close the air intake valves on the top and bottom of the stove.

KEEPING THE CABIN WARM THROUGH THE NIGHT:

Before you go to sleep, pack the stove full of wood (3-4 logs), then close top and bottom vents on the stove. This will slow the burn and let the wood burn most of the night. In the morning you should have a good set of coals that you can put a new log on, open the bottom vents and the fire will start up again.

LEAVING THE CABIN:

CLEANING:

Please strip and wash the bedding, vacuum the house and clean the kitchen/bathrooms.

To prepare the cabin for your departure please:
· tidy up the cabin
· wash your dishes
· remove trash and recyclables
· refill the wood bin for the next guests

WATER HEATER:

Return the knob to PILOT.

WATER:

See the instructions above - move all handles to the AWAY position. Once you have done this, you will need to open all of the water faucets in the house, including all hot and cold taps to drain the remaining water in the lines. Then pour about 1/2 of a cup of antifreeze into all sink and shower drains, toilet bowls and tanks. You can find the antifreeze under the kitchen sink, or the downstairs bathroom sink. It is a pink liquid in large plastic bottles. This is all very important to keep the pipes from freezing while no one is in the cabin, so please follow the directions carefully. Thank you!

HEATER:

Turn the thermostat to off.

We hope you enjoy your stay - please lock the door behind you, and make sure the shovels have been put back into the red shed. Thank you!!!!