Clever Winterizing Solutions: Five Approaches to Preserve Your Pipes in Cold Weather
Clever Winterizing Solutions: Five Approaches to Preserve Your Pipes in Cold Weather
Blog Article
What are your insights and beliefs about How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter?
All homeowners who stay in temperate climates need to do their ideal to winterize their pipelines. It is something you need to do during autumn prior to deep wintertime absolutely starts. Failing to do so can lead to catastrophe like icy, split, or burst pipes. Right here are some useful winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system secured even if the weather outside is frightful.
Attempt a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Gun
When your pipes are practically freezing, your trusty hair clothes dryer or heat weapon is a godsend. If the warm towels do not aid remove any kind of working out ice in your pipes, bowling hot air directly into them may aid. You might finish up damaging your pipelines while attempting to melt the ice.
Open Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cold outside, it would be practical to open up cabinet doors that are concealing your pipelines. Doing this small method can keep your pipes cozy as well as restrict the potentially dangerous outcomes of freezing temperature levels.
Take Time to Cover Exposed Pipeline
One cool and easy hack to warm up cold pipelines is to wrap them with cozy towels. You can cover them first with towels. After securing them in position, you can pour boiling water on the towels. Do it gradually to let the towels soak up the liquid. You can also utilize pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply don't fail to remember to wear protective gloves to secure your hands from the warm.
Turn On the Faucets
When the temperature declines as well as it seems as if the freezing temperature will certainly last, it will aid to turn on your water both inside and outdoors. This will keep the water flowing with your plumbing systems. You'll end up wasting gallons of water this means.
Turn off Water When Pipelines are Frozen
If you see that your pipes are entirely icy or nearly nearing that stage, transform off the primary water shutoff quickly. You will usually find this in your basement or utility room near the heater or the front wall surface closest to the street. Turn it off as soon as possible to avoid further damages.
Do not fail to remember to shut external water sources, also, such as your hookup for the garden home. Doing this will stop additional water from filling up your plumbing system. With even more water, more ice will certainly pile up, which will ultimately lead to burst pipelines. It is best to call an expert plumber for an examination if you are uncertain regarding the state of your pipelines this winter. Taking this positive technique can conserve you hundreds of dollars in repairs.
All homeowners that live in pleasant environments have to do their ideal to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can spell disaster like icy, cracked, or burst pipelines. If the warm towels do not assist remove any type of resolving ice in your pipes, bowling warm air straight into them might help. Turn off the primary water shutoff instantly if you see that your pipes are completely icy or virtually nearing that phase. With even more water, even more ice will certainly pile up, which will at some point lead to burst pipelines.
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/
I hope you enjoyed our excerpt on How to Prevent Frozen Pipes. Thank you so much for taking time to read through our blog post. Do you know anybody else who is truly interested in the subject? Why not share it. Thanks a lot for your time invested reading it.
Prompt service? Call here. Report this page