Avoid the Freeze: Five Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
Avoid the Freeze: Five Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
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Each person has got their unique rationale in relation to How to Prevent Frozen Pipes.
All property owners that stay in temperate climates need to do their finest to winterize their pipelines. It is something you need to do during fall before deep winter months truly begins. Failing to do so can mean calamity like frozen, split, or burst pipes. If the weather exterior is shocking, below are some helpful winterizing hacks to keep your plumbing system secured also.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature level drops and also it appears as if the cold temperature will last, it will certainly aid to turn on your water both indoors and also outdoors. This will maintain the water moving via your plumbing systems. You'll end up squandering gallons of water this method.
Open Up Closet Doors Hiding Plumbing
It would certainly be helpful to open up cabinet doors that are masking your pipelines when it's cool outside. As an example, they could be someplace in your kitchen or restroom. This will permit the cozy air from your heating system to circulate there. As a result, you prevent these revealed pipes from cold. Doing this tiny trick can keep your pipelines cozy and also restrict the potentially unsafe outcomes of freezing temperature levels.
Take Some Time to Wrap Exposed Pipes
One simple and awesome hack to warm up frigid pipes is to wrap them with cozy towels. You can cover them initially with towels. After securing them in place, you can put boiling water on the towels. Do it gradually to let the towels absorb the fluid. You can additionally utilize pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply do not neglect to use safety handwear covers to protect your hands from the warmth.
Try a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Weapon
When your pipelines are practically freezing, your trusty hair dryer or heat weapon is a godsend. Bowling hot air straight into them may assist if the hot towels do not aid displace any kind of working out ice in your pipelines. Nonetheless, do not make use of other objects that create direct fires like an impact torch. This can cause a bigger calamity that you can not control. You might wind up damaging your pipelines while trying to melt the ice. And also in the future, you may also wind up shedding your house. Be careful!
Turn off Water When Pipes are Frozen
If you see that your pipes are completely icy or almost nearing that stage, turn off the primary water shutoff immediately. You will typically locate this in your basement or utility room near the heating unit or the front wall closest to the street. Transform it off today to prevent further damages.
With even more water, even more ice will pile up, which will eventually lead to break pipelines. If you are not sure regarding the state of your pipelines this wintertime, it is best to call an expert plumber for an evaluation.
All homeowners that live in warm climates need to do their finest to winterize their pipes. Failing to do so can mean disaster like icy, split, or ruptured pipes. If the hot towels do not aid remove any resolving ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight into them may assist. Turn off the major water valve immediately if you see that your pipelines are completely icy or practically nearing that stage. With even more water, more ice will load up, which will ultimately 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.
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