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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The writer is making several good pointers about How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter in general in this post below.
All house owners who reside in temperate environments must do their finest to winterize their pipelines. It is something you should do during fall before deep winter months really starts. Failing to do so can lead to calamity like frozen, split, or burst pipes. If the weather condition exterior is shocking, below are some convenient winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system shielded even.
Attempt a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Weapon
When your pipelines are nearly freezing, your reliable hair clothes dryer or heat gun is a blessing. Bowling hot air straight into them may aid if the hot towels do not assist dislodge any type of resolving ice in your pipes. Nevertheless, do not utilize various other objects that produce straight fires like a blow torch. This can result in a bigger disaster that you can not control. You may wind up damaging your pipes while attempting to thaw the ice. And in the long run, you may also end up melting your residence. So beware!
Open Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cold outside, it would certainly be practical to open up cupboard doors that are concealing your pipes. For example, they could be somewhere in your cooking area or restroom. This will allow the cozy air from your heating unit to distribute there. As a result, you prevent these exposed pipelines from freezing. Doing this small method can maintain your pipes cozy as well as limit the potentially unsafe end results of freezing temperature levels.
Take Some Time to Wrap Exposed Piping
One great and also simple hack to heat up freezing 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 let the towels take in the liquid. You can also use pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply don't forget to put on safety handwear covers to safeguard your hands from the warmth.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature decreases and it appears as if the freezing temperature level will last, it will aid to turn on your water both inside your home as well as outdoors. This will certainly keep the water streaming with your plumbing systems. In addition, the motion will certainly reduce the cold process. Significantly, there's no demand to transform it on full blast. You'll end up losing gallons of water in this manner. Rather, go for about 5 declines per min.
Shut Off Water When Pipes are Frozen
If you discover that your pipes are entirely frozen or almost nearing that stage, turn off the primary water shutoff promptly. You will typically locate this in your cellar or laundry room near the heater or the front wall closest to the street. Turn it off right now to stop further damage.
Don't forget to close external water sources, too, such as your hookup for the garden home. Doing this will stop extra water from filling your plumbing system. With even more water, more ice will load up, which will at some point lead to break pipes. It is best to call an expert plumber for an evaluation if you are uncertain about the state of your pipes this winter months. Taking this positive approach can conserve you countless dollars out of commission.
All homeowners that live in temperate environments need to do their finest to winterize their pipelines. Failing to do so can spell catastrophe like icy, split, or burst pipelines. If the hot towels do not aid remove any settling ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight right into them may aid. Turn off the major water valve immediately if you see that your pipes are entirely frozen or almost nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will load up, which will ultimately lead to break 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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