Five Essential Hacks for Winterizing Your Pipes Against Frigid Temperatures
Five Essential Hacks for Winterizing Your Pipes Against Frigid Temperatures
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Do you find yourself hunting for additional info concerning Winterizing Your Pipes?
All property owners who live in warm environments must do their ideal to winterize their pipes. Failing to do so can mean catastrophe like frozen, broken, or burst pipes.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature declines and also it appears as if the frigid temperature will last, it will certainly assist to turn on your water both inside your home and outdoors. This will keep the water moving with your plumbing systems. Additionally, the activity will reduce the cold procedure. Significantly, there's no demand to turn it on full blast. You'll wind up throwing away gallons of water in this manner. Instead, aim for concerning 5 drops per min.
Open Up Cupboard Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cold outside, it would be helpful to open cabinet doors that are camouflaging your pipes. For example, they could be somewhere in your cooking area or shower room. This will certainly allow the warm air from your heating system to distribute there. As a result, you protect against these subjected pipelines from cold. Doing this tiny trick can keep your pipes cozy and restrict the possibly hazardous results of freezing temperature levels.
Require Time to Wrap Exposed Piping
One simple and also nifty hack to warm up frigid pipes is to cover them with cozy towels. You can cover them first with towels. After safeguarding them in position, you can pour boiling water on the towels. Do it gradually to let the towels soak up the liquid. You can likewise use pre-soaked towels in hot water, just don't forget to put on protective handwear covers to protect your hands from the warm.
Attempt a Hair Dryer or Heat Gun
When your pipelines are nearly freezing, your trusty hair dryer or warmth weapon is a godsend. If the hot towels do not assist dislodge any type of clearing up ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight right into them may help. You may end up harmful your pipes while trying to thaw the ice.
Shut Off Water When Pipelines are Frozen
If you see that your pipes are entirely icy or practically nearing that stage, turn off the main water valve promptly. You will usually locate this in your cellar or utility room near the heating unit or the front wall closest to the street. Transform it off right away to prevent more damages.
With even more water, even more ice will certainly pile up, which will eventually lead to burst pipelines. If you are unclear concerning the state of your pipelines this winter months, it is best to call a specialist plumber for an examination.
All home owners that live in pleasant climates need to do their best to winterize their pipes. Failing to do so can lead to disaster like icy, broken, or ruptured pipes. If the warm towels do not aid displace any settling ice in your pipelines, bowling warm air directly right into them may assist. Transform off the primary water valve immediately if you discover that your pipelines are totally frozen or nearly nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will certainly load up, which will ultimately 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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