Efficient Methods for Winterizing Your Pipes and Avoiding Freezing in Frigid Weather
Efficient Methods for Winterizing Your Pipes and Avoiding Freezing in Frigid Weather
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How do you actually feel in relation to How to Prevent Frozen Pipes?
All home owners who live in temperate environments should do their ideal to winterize their pipes. Failure to do so can mean calamity like icy, split, or burst pipelines.
Try a Hair Dryer or Warm Weapon
When your pipelines are practically freezing, your reliable hair clothes dryer or heat gun is a godsend. If the warm towels do not help dislodge any type of clearing up ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight into them may help. However, do not make use of various other things that produce straight fires like an impact torch. This can cause a larger catastrophe that you can not manage. You may wind up harmful your pipelines while attempting to thaw the ice. And over time, you may even end up shedding your home. So beware!
Open Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cool outside, it would certainly be useful to open closet doors that are concealing your pipes. Doing this little trick can maintain your pipes warm as well as limit the potentially harmful results of freezing temperatures.
Take Some Time to Wrap Exposed Pipes
One simple as well as nifty hack to heat up freezing pipelines is to wrap them with cozy towels. You can likewise use pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply don't fail to remember to use safety handwear covers to protect your hands from the warm.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature level declines as well as it seems as if the freezing temperature will last, it will certainly assist to switch on your water both inside your home as well as outdoors. This will keep the water flowing via your plumbing systems. In addition, the movement will certainly decrease the freezing procedure. Especially, there's no requirement to turn it on full force. You'll wind up wasting gallons of water in this manner. Instead, aim for regarding 5 decreases per minute.
Shut down Water When Pipelines are Frozen
If you discover that your pipes are totally frozen or nearly nearing that phase, transform off the primary water shutoff quickly. You will generally locate this in your cellar or laundry room near the heating unit or the front wall closest to the street. Turn it off right now to avoid further damages.
With more water, more ice will stack up, which will ultimately lead to rupture pipes. If you are uncertain regarding the state of your pipes this winter season, it is best to call a professional plumber for an evaluation.
All property owners who live in pleasant climates must do their finest to winterize their pipes. Failing to do so can mean calamity like icy, cracked, or ruptured pipelines. If the warm towels do not help dislodge any resolving ice in your pipes, bowling warm air straight right into them may assist. Transform off the major water shutoff immediately if you notice that your pipelines are completely icy or practically nearing that phase. With even more water, more ice will certainly pile up, which will at some point lead to break 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.
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