Smart Winterizing Solutions: A Handful of Approaches to Preserve Your Pipes in Cold Weather
Smart Winterizing Solutions: A Handful of Approaches to Preserve Your Pipes in Cold Weather
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Are you currently in search of guidance around How to Prevent Frozen Pipes?
All home owners that reside in warm environments must do their best to winterize their pipelines. It is something you have to do throughout autumn before deep winter months really starts. Failing to do so can lead to catastrophe like frozen, fractured, or burst pipes. Below are some useful winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system safeguarded even if the weather exterior is frightful.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature declines and it appears as if the freezing temperature level will last, it will certainly help to switch on your water both inside as well as outdoors. This will certainly keep the water moving through your plumbing systems. Additionally, the activity will slow down the cold procedure. Significantly, there's no demand to transform it on full force. You'll end up losing gallons of water this way. Instead, aim for about 5 decreases per min.
Open Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
It would be valuable to open up closet doors that are masking your pipes when it's cold outside. They can be someplace in your kitchen or bathroom. This will certainly enable the warm air from your heating system to flow there. As a result, you avoid these subjected pipes from freezing. Doing this little trick can keep your pipes warm and limit the potentially dangerous outcomes of freezing temperature levels.
Take Time to Wrap Exposed Pipes
One awesome and easy hack to heat up icy pipelines is to wrap them with cozy towels. You can cover them initially with towels. After protecting them in place, you can pour boiling water on the towels. Do it gradually to allow the towels absorb the liquid. You can additionally utilize pre-soaked towels in hot water, just don't neglect to put on safety gloves to guard your hands from the heat.
Try a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Weapon
When your pipes are almost freezing, your reliable hair dryer or warm gun is a blessing. Bowling hot air directly into them might help if the warm towels do not assist dislodge any kind of working out ice in your pipelines. Do not utilize various other items that generate direct flames like an impact torch. This can cause a bigger calamity that you can not control. You may wind up damaging your pipelines while attempting to melt the ice. And also in the long run, you might even wind up melting your house. Beware!
Shut down Water When Pipes are Frozen
If you observe that your pipelines are entirely frozen or practically nearing that stage, turn off the primary water shutoff quickly. You will typically discover this in your cellar or laundry room near the heating unit or the front wall surface closest to the street. Transform it off right away to prevent further damage.
Don't fail to remember to shut outside water resources, as well, such as your connection for the garden home. Doing this will certainly protect against additional water from filling up your plumbing system. Unfortunately, with more water, more ice will pile up, which will eventually result in burst pipes. If you are not sure about the state of your pipelines this winter, it is best to call a specialist plumber for an examination. Taking this proactive approach can conserve you countless bucks out of commission.
All home owners that live in warm environments need to do their finest to winterize their pipes. Failing to do so can mean disaster like icy, broken, or burst pipelines. If the hot towels do not aid remove any resolving ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight into them might assist. Turn off the major water valve instantly if you see that your pipelines are completely icy or practically nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will load up, which will eventually 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.
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