Practical Methods for Winterizing Your Pipes and Preventing Freezing in Frigid Weather
Practical Methods for Winterizing Your Pipes and Preventing Freezing in Frigid Weather
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All homeowners that reside in warm climates should do their finest to winterize their pipelines. It is something you must do during fall prior to deep wintertime genuinely starts. Failing to do so can lead to catastrophe like icy, cracked, or ruptured pipelines. Below are some convenient winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system secured even if the climate exterior is shocking.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature drops and it seems as if the icy temperature level will last, it will certainly aid to turn on your water both indoors and also outdoors. This will maintain the water flowing via your plumbing systems. In addition, the activity will decrease the cold process. Significantly, there's no demand to turn it on full force. You'll wind up losing gallons of water in this manner. Instead, aim for concerning 5 drops per minute.
Open Up Closet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cool outside, it would certainly be practical to open closet doors that are camouflaging your pipes. They could be somewhere in your kitchen or washroom. This will certainly allow the warm air from your heater to distribute there. Because of this, you prevent these exposed pipes from freezing. Doing this small trick can maintain your pipelines warm as well as limit the potentially unsafe results of freezing temperatures.
Take Time to Cover Exposed Pipes
One easy and great hack to warm up cold pipelines is to wrap them with warm towels. You can likewise utilize pre-soaked towels in warm water, simply don't neglect to use safety gloves to safeguard your hands from the heat.
Attempt a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warmth Weapon
When your pipelines are nearly freezing, your trusty hair clothes dryer or heat weapon is a blessing. Bowling hot air straight right into them might help if the warm towels do not aid remove any type of resolving ice in your pipelines. Do not utilize other things that produce straight fires like a strike torch. This can lead to a larger catastrophe that you can not regulate. You may wind up damaging your pipelines while trying to thaw the ice. And in the future, you might even wind up shedding your house. So be careful!
Turn off Water When Pipes are Frozen
Turn off the primary water valve right away if you observe that your pipelines are completely icy or practically nearing that phase. You will normally locate this in your basement or utility room near the heater or the front wall surface closest to the street. Transform it off right away to stop more damage.
With even more water, more ice will load up, which will eventually lead to rupture pipelines. If you are unsure concerning the state of your pipelines this winter, it is best to call a professional plumber for an assessment.
All property owners that live in pleasant environments should do their finest to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can spell catastrophe like icy, fractured, or burst pipes. If the hot towels do not help remove any clearing up ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight into them might assist. Turn off the primary water valve quickly if you notice that your pipelines are completely frozen or practically nearing that stage. With even more water, more ice will pile up, which will eventually 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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