Running a minpaku in winter (snow, freezing, insulation) — for guesthouse owners / Toyama
Winter is when a guesthouse in Toyama is really tested: roof snow, frozen pipes, cold. We put what happens in winter, and what it costs, into the operating plan before the guesthouse opens. Set out month by month by us, a minpaku management operator that is also a builder.
Winter is when a guesthouse in Toyama is really tested. Snow settles on the roof, loosens during the day, then freezes overnight. Water pipes freeze and burst if the house goes several days without a guest. Damage happens in December–February, and it only shows clearly in spring, once the snow has gone. Here is the winter routine, month by month.
Unlike looking after an empty house, guests keep arriving through the winter. The year of an empty house is set out in A year-round calendar for managing a Toyama vacant house from afar. This page covers the routine for getting a guesthouse through the winter.
A guesthouse has days with no one staying. If the house goes several days without a guest, the water pipes freeze and burst. In Toyama Prefecture, frozen and broken pipes on residential plots once caused a string of leaks and a major water outage, and the prefecture advises draining pipes that are not in use (Toyama Prefecture: preventing outages caused by frozen water pipes, Japanese).
Closing the stopcock is not enough. Water left in the pipes freezes, expands and splits the pipes and joints. Shutting off the water means going through all of the following steps.
If you leave the water on. Some days the next booking is close and you would rather not shut the water off. Then wrap pipes and taps that are in the shade or exposed in insulation, and let a little water run from a tap on nights when a hard frost is forecast. That is the method Toyama Prefecture recommends. A water heater's frost protection needs power, so if you leave the water on, leave the electricity on too. Never pour boiling water on a frozen pipe: it will burst.
At a guesthouse, hot water that works on the day of the next booking is a given. So we put frost protection into the operating plan from the start. Burst pipes and a water heater that has stopped are fixed by us, without you having to find a contractor.
For an empty house whose owner lives out of the prefecture, you can ask the neighbourhood association, a Silver Human Resources Centre or a snow-clearing contractor. A guesthouse is different: on booked days, roof snow must not fall in front of the entrance, and the hot water has to work. So snow clearing goes into the operating plan from the start.
How many times a year depends on that year's snow and where the house is. On the plains some years need no clearing at all; in the hills some years need three. In heavy-snow years everyone calls at once and there is a waiting list. As builders, we go up for the roof snow ourselves. That cost is budgeted separately from the operating fee and put in writing before you start.
If you clear it yourself, never go up on the roof alone. Work in twos or more, with a safety rope. People fall from roofs in snow country every year.
Snow on the roof slides off all at once on a warm day, breaking eaves, gutters, and the neighbour's fence or carport. The direction is set by the way the roof faces, so a roof facing the neighbour's land drops its snow in the same place every year.
If a roof that sheds snow toward the neighbour's land is left as it is, the owner is liable for the damage. How that liability works is set out in Who is liable when a vacant house damages the neighbours. So where snow slides toward the neighbour's land or the eaves are damaged, we check on site, before the guesthouse opens, whether it needs fixing.
There are ways to clear the roof less often. Re-roofing (replacing the whole roof) with a lighter material instead of tiles gives more margin against the weight of snow and helps with seismic reinforcement at the same time. Other options are rearranging the snow guards, changing the roof shape and pitch, or installing snow-melting equipment.
* Construction cost. Varies with the area, the roof shape and scaffolding conditions.
Which method suits depends on how the building is made and how it sits next to the neighbouring land, so we decide after seeing the site. Snow-melting in particular means an electricity bill every year — not something to choose on the upfront cost alone. More on the Roofs and snow page.
Doing the insulation (keeping outside cold and heat from getting in) first is also about winter. The 90-year-old guesthouse we opened had its insulation done first. It is a precondition for operating through a Hokuriku winter: a cold guesthouse gets no winter bookings.
Besides insulation, this guesthouse got two new sets of shower room, toilet and washbasin, and work on the upstairs floors, walls and ceilings and the exterior walls. It took 4 months and ¥9 million in construction. The work and photos are in Project 01, and the full cost of opening is in The cost of starting a minpaku in Toyama.
* A construction-cost guide from our own projects. Varies with the condition of the building and the scope of work.
Our operating fee has no fixed monthly charge and is paid only from revenue (you pay a commission only when there are sales). We take an agreed percentage of the lodging revenue, so when winter bookings are few the fee falls with the revenue. In a month with no revenue there is no operating fee.
Actual costs such as bedding, consumables and repair materials, and winter snow clearing and frost protection, are separate, and what is separate is written down before you start. How the percentage is set is in Minpaku operating costs (the fee), and everything we take on is in Minpaku operation in Toyama.
How much snow falls and what the roads are like differ by area. In Toyama a guesthouse works best where people already pass: on the way to Tateyama and Kurobe, in Nanto with Gokayama, around Hida-Takayama. The snow and roads of each area are covered under "Snow, roads and the lie of the land" on each municipality's page, such as Tateyama, Kurobe, Nanto and Takayama.
In October–November, before the snow, clean the gutters, put up the snow screens and decide how the water will be drained. Whether snow slides toward the neighbour's land and whether the eaves are damaged are checked on site before the guesthouse opens. Snow clearing and frost protection go into the operating plan from the start.
Closing the stopcock is not enough. Any water left in the pipes freezes, expands and splits the pipes and joints. Close the stopcock, open every tap in the house to let the water out, and empty the water heater and the toilet tank. That is what draining means. If you leave the water on, wrap exposed pipes and taps in insulation and let a little water run from a tap on nights when a hard frost is forecast. On the day of the next booking, make sure the hot water works.
About ¥30,000–80,000 a time. How many times a year depends on that year's snow and where the house is. For guesthouses we manage, snow clearing and frost protection are budgeted separately from the operating fee and put in writing before you start.
If a roof that sheds snow toward the neighbour's land is left as it is, the owner is liable for the damage. Rearranging the snow guards or changing the roof shape and pitch can sometimes change where the snow falls. Which works depends on how the building is made and how it sits next to the neighbouring land, so we decide after seeing the site.
Our operating fee is an agreed percentage of the lodging revenue, so when winter bookings are few it falls with the revenue. In a month with no revenue there is no operating fee. Actual costs such as bedding, consumables and repair materials, and winter snow clearing and frost protection, are separate.
Just photos and the location of the guesthouse are enough. We check the direction of sliding snow, the eaves and the plumbing on site and put the winter costs in writing. We run the guesthouse through our minpaku operation service in Toyama.
* All costs are guides and vary with the house, its location and that year's snow. For frozen pipes, treat the guidance from Toyama Prefecture and your municipal waterworks as authoritative.
What we manage and what it costs, the cost of opening, the filing steps, and roofs and snow.