Prevent the Freeze: Five Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
Prevent the Freeze: Five Essential Hacks to Keep Your Pipes From Bursting This Winter
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What are your opinions regarding How to Prevent Frozen Pipes?
All home owners that reside in pleasant climates have to do their finest to winterize their pipelines. It is something you have to do throughout fall prior to deep wintertime really begins. Failure to do so can lead to calamity like icy, cracked, or ruptured pipelines. Right here are some convenient winterizing hacks to keep your plumbing system secured even if the weather condition outside is terrible.
Attempt a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Weapon
When your pipes are nearly freezing, your trusty hair dryer or heat weapon is a blessing. If the hot towels do not help remove any resolving ice in your pipes, bowling hot air directly into them may aid. Nevertheless, do not use other things that create straight fires like a blow lantern. This can lead to a larger disaster that you can not manage. You may wind up destructive your pipelines while attempting to thaw the ice. And also in the long run, you might even wind up burning your house. So be careful!
Open Up Cupboard Doors Hiding Plumbing
It would certainly be handy to open closet doors that are concealing your pipelines when it's chilly outside. They could be someplace in your cooking area or shower room. This will enable the warm air from your heating unit to circulate there. Therefore, you stop these exposed pipelines from cold. Doing this tiny method can keep your pipelines warm as well as limit the possibly harmful end results of freezing temperature levels.
Require Time to Wrap Exposed Water Lines
One clever and simple hack to warm up freezing pipes is to wrap them with warm towels. You can cover them first with towels. After safeguarding them in position, you can put boiling water on the towels. Do it slowly to let the towels take in the fluid. You can additionally make use of pre-soaked towels in hot water, just don't fail to remember to put on safety handwear covers to safeguard your hands from the heat.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature declines as well as it seems as if the frigid temperature will certainly last, it will help to turn on your water both inside as well as outdoors. This will certainly maintain the water moving via your plumbing systems. You'll end up losing gallons of water this method.
When Pipelines are Frozen, close Off Water
Turn off the main water valve instantly if you see that your pipelines are totally icy or almost nearing that phase. You will generally find this in your basement or utility room near the heating system or the front wall closest to the street. Turn it off today to prevent further damage.
Don't neglect to shut external water resources, as well, such as your connection for the yard home. Doing this will protect against added water from filling your plumbing system. However, with more water, even more ice will certainly accumulate, which will eventually bring about burst pipes. If you are uncertain regarding the state of your pipelines this winter, it is best to call a specialist plumber for an evaluation. Taking this proactive method can conserve you countless dollars out of commission.
All house owners who live in temperate climates must do their best to winterize their pipelines. Failing to do so can mean catastrophe like icy, split, or burst pipelines. If the warm towels do not assist dislodge any type of resolving ice in your pipes, bowling hot air directly right into them might assist. Transform off the main water shutoff right away if you see that your pipes are totally icy or almost nearing that phase. With more water, more ice will certainly pile up, which will ultimately 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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