Get Ready for Winter: 5 Essential Hacks to Protect Your Pipes From Bursting
Get Ready for Winter: 5 Essential Hacks to Protect Your Pipes From Bursting
Blog Article
Were you searching for content around How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter?
All house owners that live in warm climates must do their ideal to winterize their pipes. Failure to do so can lead to catastrophe like icy, split, or ruptured pipelines.
Switch on the Faucets
When the temperature drops as well as it seems as if the frigid temperature will certainly last, it will certainly help to turn on your water both inside your home and outdoors. This will certainly keep the water moving with your plumbing systems. Furthermore, the motion will certainly reduce the cold process. Especially, there's no requirement to turn it on full blast. You'll end up throwing away gallons of water this way. Instead, go for about 5 drops per minute.
Open Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cool outside, it would be useful to open up cabinet doors that are concealing your pipelines. Doing this small method can keep your pipes warm and limit the potentially harmful results of freezing temperature levels.
Take Some Time to Cover Exposed Water Lines
One great and easy hack to warm up frigid pipelines is to cover them with warm towels. You can cover them first with towels. After securing them in place, you can pour boiling water on the towels. Do it slowly to let the towels absorb the liquid. You can additionally make use of pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply don't forget to put on safety handwear covers to protect your hands from the heat.
Try a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warmth Gun
When your pipelines are almost freezing, your reliable hair clothes dryer or heat gun is a blessing. If the warm towels do not assist displace any clearing up ice in your pipelines, bowling warm air directly into them might help. You may finish up damaging your pipelines while trying to melt the ice.
Shut down Water When Pipes are Frozen
Switch off the major water valve quickly if you notice that your pipelines are entirely icy or practically nearing that stage. You will normally discover this in your cellar or utility room near the heating system or the front wall surface closest to the street. Transform it off as soon as possible to stop more damage.
Don't forget to shut exterior water sources, too, such as your connection for the yard house. Doing this will certainly stop additional water from filling your plumbing system. Unfortunately, with even more water, more ice will pile up, which will ultimately lead to burst pipelines. It is best to call an expert plumber for an assessment if you are unclear concerning the state of your pipelines this winter season. Taking this proactive strategy can save you hundreds of bucks out of commission.
All home owners who live in temperate climates have to do their ideal to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can mean calamity like icy, cracked, or burst pipes. If the warm towels do not help dislodge any kind of settling ice in your pipes, bowling warm air straight into them might help. Transform off the major water shutoff right away if you observe that your pipelines are completely frozen or almost nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will stack up, which will ultimately lead to rupture pipes.
Planning Ahead for Winter Plumbing!
Given how the weather has been recently here in Kansas City, it may not seem like it, but the truth is winter is quickly approaching. As we near the end of September, it is never a bad idea to start considering which areas of your home could use some preventative maintenance heading into the colder months, as well as what you should remember to do once the colder temps settle in. And considering your plumbing system can certainly be impacted by changing weather conditions, guess what we’ll be talking about today?
For those that are visiting our blog for the very first time, welcome to Stine-Nichols Plumbing. Here on the blog, we post weekly about various aspects of the plumbing world. Whether that be DIY tips, brand highlights or anything else, they’re all designed to make homeowners more knowledgeable about their plumbing systems. Believe it or not, even just some general knowledge about one’s plumbing can go a long way in preventing unneeded repairs and keeping everything running smoothly. As referenced in the previous paragraph, this week’s blog will walk through a few of the steps you can do to your own plumbing system to ensure you’re ready to go for the upcoming winter weather and tips for keeping it all in working order as the winter carries on. Let’s hop right in!
Disconnect Hoses
You’ve likely heard this one on multiple occasions, but it is certainly something worth mentioning. Make sure to disconnect any and all outdoor hoses and then turn off those outdoor faucets at the shut-off. The logic behind this is probably something you would have learned in a grade school science class. When water freezes, it expands. Thus, due to this, it’s going to occupy more space. And if there’s no space to occupy, trouble ensues. It’s as simple as that!
Long story short, if you have room to store them indoors, do so. If not, just be sure to completely drain them and then store them in a dry area, such as the garage or a shed. Failure to disconnect the hoses can easily result in frozen/bursting pipes and plumbing headaches for you, especially if there is still water sitting in the hose! Do yourself a favor and disconnect your hoses once you know you won’t be using them anymore for that season. It’s a quick-and-easy step that’s always worth the time.
Headed Out of Town?
Our next point will likely get more and more relevant as we get into the holiday season. Do you remember the extreme arctic blast that hit the Kansas City area in February of 2021? Sub-zero temps, frigid wind chills, it was definitely not the funnest of times for KC residents. Nonetheless, here at Stine-Nichols Plumbing, it’s safe to say our technicians were quite busy dealing with frozen/bursting pipes. What I’m hinting at here is that you never know when we’ll experience extremely cold temperatures. So if you’re going to be out of town for a little bit, it’s never a bad idea to turn off your water at the main shut-off valve. While this won’t prevent every possible plumbing issue, it will at least limit the damage if something bad were to occur. Especially if you don’t have a family member or friend that’ll be checking on your home while you’re away, make sure to keep this tip in mind!
By the way, it may sound like a no-brainer to most, but if you are headed out of town, make sure to also keep the heat on inside while away. You will have some added energy costs from heating a home while nobody’s there, but if it prevents you from dealing with a plumbing emergency, it’s well worth it!
Leave Cabinet Doors Open
As you may start to notice, the primary winter plumbing problem that you need to be mindful of involves pipes freezing. Whether it be indoors or outdoors, they can freeze for a few different reasons, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of various tactics you can implement to improve your odds of keeping everything in working order. Yet another one of these that you’ve likely heard before is leaving the cabinet doors under your bathroom or kitchen sink open. Will this provide complete protection? Not necessarily. However, this is an easy way to make sure some of the heat in your home is reaching those pipes that aren’t insulated under your sinks.
https://www.stinenichols.com/kansas-city/planning-ahead-for-winter-plumbing/
Do you really like reading about How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter? Post feedback further down. We would be glad to find out your responses about this entry. We hope that you visit us again in the future. So long as you liked our page please remember to share it. Many thanks for taking the time to read it.
Schedule A Free Estimate Report this page