Useful Tips for Winterizing Your Plumbing and Safeguarding Against Freezing Temperatures
Useful Tips for Winterizing Your Plumbing and Safeguarding Against Freezing Temperatures
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Do you find yourself in search of resources on Winterizing Your Pipes?
All homeowners who live in warm environments should do their best to winterize their pipes. Failure to do so can lead to catastrophe like icy, broken, or ruptured pipelines.
Attempt a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warm Gun
When your pipelines are nearly freezing, your trusty hair clothes dryer or heat gun is a godsend. If the warm towels do not assist remove any type of resolving ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air directly into them might help. You might end up destructive your pipes while trying to thaw the ice.
Open Up Cabinet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cold outside, it would certainly be handy to open closet doors that are concealing your pipelines. Doing this small technique can maintain your pipes cozy and restrict the possibly harmful end results of freezing temperatures.
Require Time to Wrap Exposed Water Lines
One great and simple hack to heat up frigid pipelines is to cover them with cozy towels. You can cover them initially with towels. After securing them in position, you can put boiling water on the towels. Do it gradually to let the towels soak up the fluid. You can likewise use pre-soaked towels in hot water, just do not neglect to put on safety handwear covers to secure your hands from the warmth.
Switch on the Faucets
When the temperature level drops as well as it seems as if the icy temperature level will certainly last, it will help to switch on your water both inside your home and also outdoors. This will maintain the water streaming with your plumbing systems. In addition, the movement will slow down the freezing process. Especially, there's no demand to transform it on full force. You'll end up losing gallons of water in this manner. Rather, aim for about 5 drops per min.
When Pipelines are Frozen, shut Off Water
Switch off the major water valve right away if you observe that your pipes are totally frozen or nearly nearing that stage. You will typically discover this in your cellar or laundry room near the heater or the front wall closest to the street. Turn it off right away to prevent further damage.
With more water, more ice will load up, which will at some point lead to break pipes. If you are not sure concerning the state of your pipelines this winter season, it is best to call an expert plumber for an examination.
All homeowners who live in warm climates must do their best to winterize their pipes. Failure to do so can spell disaster like frozen, cracked, or ruptured pipelines. If the hot towels do not help displace any type of clearing up ice in your pipes, bowling warm air straight into them may aid. Turn off the major water valve instantly if you notice that your pipelines are totally frozen or almost nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will stack 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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