The Search Begins
Right around 2017 or the start of 2018 my wife (AKA “She who will be obeyed”) began to make it very apparent that she wanted to start to look for property “Up North.”
For those in the Metro Detroit area, this is a commonly used term that could easily reference anything about Mid Lower Michigan and Northward…at least about a 2 hr. drive from home.
And so, the search began…and I (or we) would soon learn that what she had in mind and what I would be willing to settle for or accept were two completely different ideas. Our realtor was a friend of the family and my God did we put her through her paces having looked at easily 100-150 different properties in 2018-2019.
Finding “That” Property
It wouldn’t be until about July 2019 when we stumbled across “that” piece of property…a small cottage on 10 acres. Now I am a city boy mind you…and while I spent my fair share each year growing up in the UP during summers at my Grandparents place, never did I ever see myself owning 10 acres, and this property would surely be a learning curve.
The property is situated just outside of West Branch, MI in Churchill Twp., and while it is not technically “off grid” it does sit off the beaten path…on a secondary road and only has a handful of homes or cottages in the surrounding area.
The Well House Challenge
What it did have was a well and a septic tank. Both of which I have had absolutely NO experience whatsoever. The well and all the equipment sat above ground and was in a small (4' × 4' × 4') insulated structure attached to the side of the cottage.
The equipment inside this structure (pump, pressure tank, etc.) was not the best at all…basically items that had been assembled over the years from one of the big box stores and to be honest, were older and not in the best of condition. According to the seller who was residing in the cottage year-round, all he did was “leave a lightbulb on all winter inside the well house” and he had no problem with the pump or pressure tank freezing.
Just one look and you could see not much care or concern was placed into any thought on freeze prevention and protection for the well and its components…but then again, the seller resided there…if something were to happen, he was onsite and would be aware and could make the repairs.
This cottage would be kept open all winter so we could visit and relax as we wanted, just something about a fall or winter day with a fire in the stove, snow falling, easy music and a hot cup of coffee. When not there we would keep the propane set low inside, maybe 48°F and all the cabinet doors open so the warm air could circulate. But it was also 2.5 hrs. North of our primary home near Detroit, so if anything should happen while we were away, there would be absolutely NO way to know. Even if we did have a way to know that something had frozen and a pipe had burst, it would be hours before we could get there and God only knows how long before our next visit to discover the damage, so this would always be a gamble with a risk…one that always had me worried and concerned.
Early Freeze Protection Attempts
The first couple years would be that learning curve…how things worked, what worked, what did not work, and for the first couple years I tried and experimented with a small portable heater plugged into one of those “ThermoCubes” in an effort to keep the interior of the well house above freezing and preventing any of the equipment from getting damaged. While farmers used the light bulb method for years with success, something just said this was wrong and I was going to have problems, burned out bulbs and no heat makes for frozen pipes…and also a fire hazard.
Now to be honest, I am not sure if this (the heater and ThermoCube) worked, or if I was just lucky…but for the first couple years nothing happened (maybe the weather was just a bit more kind those first couple of years?). Setting this heater up inside the well house was not easy as the only access is by lifting the entire roof which is on hinges and blocking the roof in an open position so that it wouldn’t slam shut and break my back, neck or trap me inside the well house. Also, all this had to be done in the early fall (I would frequently press my luck as far into fall as possible) however if I misjudged the weather and snow or freezing temps came, I was in serious trouble.
Inside the structure I would leave a remote temp sensor that would transmit the interior temps of the well house to a display module located inside the cottage. This was a small bit of comfort for me to at least look and see what temps were inside the structure and not have to make any effort to try to open it, check on the equipment and lose any heat that had been built up.
But my luck was soon about to change.
The Expensive Lessons
In the summer of 2022, the pressure tank began to fail…nothing lasts forever and this equipment did not appear to be of any quality, so I wasn’t too shocked or surprised. What I was shocked about was the cost of having the well company come out on a Saturday for an emergency service call and replace all the items with commercial grade equipment.
But what was done was done…and I was now happy that what had been installed was quality and done by professionals…I could rest easy that things were done right. That winter I continued to use the small heater and ThermoCube combo and again, all “seemed” to be “ok”, but in the back of my head I questioned all this expensive equipment being protected by a $19 heater and a $15 plug-in thermostat cube…how reliable was all of this?
Tempting fate and trying to improve…
In 2023 I decided I wanted to improve my winter heating protection and decided to install a heater that was made to keep dogs in their doghouse warm during the winter months. I did all the reading, all the research…contacted the companies… This heater appeared to be considerably advanced over what I was currently using and felt if it was meant to keep living animals warm during the winter, this would be fine for my well house.
I was going to soon learn about an expensive mistake as sometime about November or so something failed and the brand-new jet pump froze and shattered the head spraying water within the well house. We didn’t discover the damage until my wife made the decision to take a trip up to the cottage and upon arrival could “hear water spraying” and called to tell me (I was back at home).
With the breaker to the pump finally shut off I headed North to better assess the problem…only to discover the extent of the damage and now faced with another Saturday emergency service call to the well company for another repair / replacement of the well pump (we won’t discuss the cost or how upset I was not only at myself for having tried a different heat system, but also at the cost to replace brand new commercial grade equipment that had just been installed approximately 18 months previous).
So now back to square one…a small indoor heater and ThermoCube as my heat source…but apparently, I wasn’t done yet as I was willing to try one more time a different option: yes…the light bulb. Back to the drawing board…and research. The bulb has to be incandescent to generate heat…and would have to have a projected hour rating that would possibly get me thru many months of cold weather here in Northern Lower Michigan.
So, I settled in on a couple of brand new 100W outdoor halogen spot lamps mounted in a clamp on reflector housing and directed right at the well pump. The lamp(s)…yes there were two…one as primary, one as a backup should the primary lamp fail…and both plugged into their own ThermoCube had an extended continuous run time rating so I was hopeful these might do the trick.
Wow was the winter of 2024 a long and worrisome 5-6 months…but we made it thru and the lamps seemed to work…but there is the problem…finding incandescent lamps and quality ones at that are becoming harder and harder to find as everything now is LED and we all know LED does not produce the heat source I would need.
Discovering Xtreme Heaters
As summer 2025 started to end, my mind began to once again worry how I am going to safely and reliably heat the well house. I know by now many of you are most likely saying just shut off the pump, drain it, winterize the cottage and be done with it…and yep…that was an option that we were closing in on very fast but we do like to enjoy the cottage in the winter and the ability of having water available is a blessing…
So back to the research table I went and after some extensive reading I kept seeing Xtreme Heaters. As I read more, I also kept seeing similar looking heating elements and many at a much more reasonable price point…but something kept me returning to Xtreme Heaters.
Extensively engineered and tested…check
Dedicated thermostat…check
Coast Guard approved…check
Used to heat some incredibly expensive boats and RVs in the winter…double check.
So, I ended up pulling the trigger (Amazon purchase) on what I felt to be sufficient size heater for the area I wanted to heat (Xtreme 400 W). If these little heaters are being used to safely protect some incredibly expensive boats and RVs, then it MUST be good enough for my small well house, right?
We can be our own worst enemies at times, especially after having experienced difficulties and excessive repair costs in recent years…you start to question your decisions and worry if I made the right purchase…above all, will this perform as advertised and expected…or needed?
So the 400 W unit is delivered and right away, I have to say I was impressed…heavy duty to say the least…but my mind is still working overtime, so I decided to reach out to the company, explain my situation and ask some questions…ok, a lot of questions.
Imagine how surprised I was to receive a very quick reply from not just someone at Xtreme Heaters, but from Steve Pescitelli the owner of Xtreme Heaters who appeared to be genuinely interested in not only my inquiry but also in finding a solution for my specific situation.
After several back-and-forth emails and me sending several interior and exterior pictures of what I am working with, Steve recommended that I may want to increase my heater from the 400 W to the 800 W unit simply to provide the added extra headroom and insurance I was looking for to insure that the well house would be sufficiently heated.
So, taking his advice, I purchased the 800 W and returned the 400 W, and now to put this heater to the test…but only time will tell if this unit is all Steve claims it to be.
Installation could not have been simpler…plug and play. That’s it. I placed the heater inside the well house in early November and positioned it as Steve recommended, somewhere near and as close to the center of the equipment as possible so that the heat would rise and warm as much of the vital equipment as possible.
The built-in thermostat is engineered to turn the heater on at 40°F, and once the ambient temperature reaches 55°F, it will shut off. I kept the remote temp sensor inside the well house so I could monitor activity inside our cottage.
I thought for certain that this would be the end of my contact with Steve, as most companies just don’t either have the time or the interest for follow up…wow, was I wrong.
Steve has reached out several times on his own inquiring on updates and how the situation stands with my well equipment and his 800 W heater truly showing genuine interest and concern…something that just isn’t seen often today.
And I was happy to report to Steve that “so far” things appear to be just fine.
Performance Through a Brutal Winter
Michigan, like the rest of the nation this past winter (2025-2026) has experienced some incredibly brutal Polar Vortex, bomb cyclones, and any other nasty names our weather forecasters could come up with…our temps like many others has consistently seen low single digits to frequent below zero and often sub-zero wind chills.
I was deeply concerned that there would be little I could do to stop or prevent another bad year of expensive damage and could only hope that Steve’s Xtreme Heater was performing as he felt it would.
Our last trip to the cottage (December) I could actually watch and monitor the well house and the heater as it would turn on, heat up and then turn off, maintaining the internal temperature consistently above 40°F!!!
Since then it had been several months and we have not been able to get North…so a friend of mine stopped over to check on our place about February sometime…and again, even after all of this worry and brutal cold weather we have experienced, the internal well house temps continued to maintain above 40°F.
I simply could not be any more happy or grateful for Steve’s product, his time and the performance so far but winter was far from over and claiming victory over old man winter just seemed to be celebrating a bit too soon.
Yep, and was I right…winter was gearing up to put another spanking on Northern Michigan about Mid-March…another round of sub-zero freezing temps along with hail, ice and snow. When was this ever gonna let up?
And boy did it hit…downed trees, power outages across many parts of Northern Lower Michigan including our cottage.
Consumers Power provides our service and through the Mobile app we can get alerts on expected weather issues, power outages, causes, updates and repairs or when the power has been re-established.
Electrical was down for several days…Michigan suffered extreme rains and freeze damage a year ago that left the Northern half of the Lower Peninsula without power for weeks…so for this storm it seemed that the power companies were preparing for another similar storm and called in help just to be sure.
We were without power for several days, even if I was at the cottage there was little I could do to get power to the heating unit in the well house. We were simply at the mercy of the elements and could only pray to the Gods of Electricity to restore things as soon as possible.
Shortly after the power was restored, we made a trip North as we HAD to make sure we had no issues…and once again, we discovered all to be in order with Steve’s Xtreme Heater running and steady temps in the well house hovering in the 40s to 50s!
As I am typing it is now just after Easter, while Spring is slowly making every effort to come back online Mother Nature and Old Man Winter still isn’t done quite yet. An occasional crazy spring winter storm, night temps dropping down into the 20s, but honestly, I feel the worst is now well beyond us.
I just can’t believe we are ¼ of the way into 2026 already…where is this year going?
Closing Thoughts
As Steve and I kept in touch he asked if I would be interested in typing up a blog of my experiences and all that has happened…honestly at first I didn’t know how to approach this but once I started to type it out I was shocked at all the things that have happened.
In closing I want to first off say thanks to Steve…for answering not only my initial email but all of the follow up emails…the endless questions, the technical concerns, and on and on.
As the owner of the company he took the interest and time, as well as patience to address my questions, my concerns, and work out what he felt would be my best engineered and safest solution for an unusual problem to say the least.
I mean who does that any more in today’s world? Try to simply get someone to answer a phone or some sort of customer service let alone the owner responding and staying in touch.
Second, Steve chose to follow up on his own and appeared to be curious and concerned on how things were holding up during all of this. He continued to explain how his heaters were developed, engineered and how they work. How the built-in thermostat was developed, its quality and also what to expect when I see the remote temp sensor in the well house respond and fluctuate….it was simply reassurance.
Lastly, the heater itself. This is the bottom line…you get what you pay for.
Again, I am no engineer…but when you open the box and first look at this item it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or in this case an HVAC Tech) to see it is a little tank, quality built, and designed to do exactly what is advertised to do.
Absolutely happy I made this purchase and so far, couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Thanks to Steve and Xtreme Heaters for a little peace of mind on what seemed to be a problem with no sound answers.
Here’s to spring (and summer!)
Dan & Donna Foley
