Prevent the Freeze: 5 Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
Prevent the Freeze: 5 Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
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How do you actually feel on the subject of How to Prevent Frozen Pipes?
All homeowners that reside in warm climates have to do their best to winterize their pipelines. It is something you have to do throughout fall before deep winter months really starts. Failure to do so can mean disaster like frozen, cracked, or burst pipelines. If the climate outside is frightful, right here are some useful winterizing hacks to keep your plumbing system protected even.
Switch on the Faucets
When the temperature level decreases and also it seems as if the icy temperature will last, it will help to turn on your water both indoors and outdoors. This will maintain the water flowing with your plumbing systems. You'll finish up squandering gallons of water this means.
Open Up Cupboard Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cool outside, it would certainly be valuable to open up closet doors that are concealing your pipelines. They can be somewhere in your kitchen area or shower room. This will enable the warm air from your heater to circulate there. Consequently, you avoid these subjected pipelines from freezing. Doing this little technique can keep your pipes warm and restrict the possibly unsafe end results of freezing temperature levels.
Take Some Time to Cover Exposed Piping
One easy and nifty hack to heat up freezing pipes is to cover them with warm towels. You can cover them initially with towels. After securing them in place, you can pour boiling water on the towels. Do it slowly to allow the towels soak up the fluid. You can additionally utilize pre-soaked towels in hot water, just don't forget to put on safety handwear covers to secure your hands from the warmth.
Try a Hair Dryer or Warm Gun
When your pipelines are virtually freezing, your trusty hair clothes dryer or heat weapon is a blessing. Bowling hot air straight into them might aid if the warm towels do not assist remove any working out ice in your pipes. Do not utilize other things that create direct flames like an impact torch. This can cause a bigger catastrophe that you can not manage. You may end up harmful your pipes while attempting to melt the ice. As well as over time, you may even wind up melting your residence. Beware!
Shut Off Water When Pipelines are Frozen
If you discover that your pipes are entirely icy or practically nearing that phase, turn off the main water valve instantly. You will typically find this in your basement or laundry room near the heater or the front wall closest to the street. Turn it off right away to avoid additional damage.
Do not forget to close outside water resources, as well, such as your hookup for the garden residence. Doing this will stop added water from filling up your plumbing system. Regrettably, with even more water, even more ice will certainly pile up, which will eventually lead to burst pipes. If you are unclear regarding the state of your pipelines this wintertime, it is best to call an expert plumber for an examination. Taking this positive approach can conserve you hundreds of dollars in repairs.
All home owners that live in temperate climates should do their best to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can spell calamity like icy, split, or burst pipes. If the warm towels do not assist dislodge any resolving ice in your pipes, bowling hot air straight into them might help. Turn off the primary water shutoff right away if you see that your pipelines are totally frozen or virtually nearing that phase. With more water, more ice will certainly load up, which will at some point lead to rupture 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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