Intelligent Winterizing Solutions: A Handful of Techniques to Secure Pipe Bursts
Intelligent Winterizing Solutions: A Handful of Techniques to Secure Pipe Bursts
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What're your concepts on How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter?
All home owners that stay in temperate environments need to do their finest to winterize their pipes. It is something you have to do throughout fall before deep winter genuinely begins. Failing to do so can mean calamity like icy, broken, or burst pipelines. If the weather condition outside is frightful, here are some convenient winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system protected also.
Activate the Faucets
When the temperature declines and it appears as if the freezing temperature level will last, it will certainly aid to switch on your water both inside as well as outdoors. This will keep the water moving through your plumbing systems. Furthermore, the movement will reduce the freezing process. Notably, there's no requirement to transform it on full blast. You'll end up throwing away gallons of water in this manner. Rather, aim for about 5 decreases per minute.
Open Closet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's chilly outside, it would certainly be practical to open cabinet doors that are camouflaging your pipelines. Doing this small method can maintain your pipelines cozy as well as restrict the possibly unsafe outcomes of freezing temperatures.
Take Time to Wrap Exposed Pipes
One awesome as well as easy hack to heat up icy pipelines is to wrap them with warm towels. You can cover them first with towels. After safeguarding them in place, you can put boiling water on the towels. Do it slowly to let the towels absorb the liquid. You can also make use of pre-soaked towels in hot water, simply do not neglect to use safety handwear covers to protect your hands from the heat.
Try a Hair Dryer or Heat Weapon
When your pipelines are practically freezing, your trusty hair dryer or heat weapon is a godsend. If the warm towels do not help remove any kind of resolving ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air directly right into them may assist. You may finish up damaging your pipelines while trying to melt the ice.
Shut down Water When Pipes are Frozen
Turn off the primary water shutoff quickly if you see that your pipes are completely frozen or almost nearing that stage. You will typically find this in your basement or utility room near the heating unit or the front wall surface closest to the street. Turn it off right away to prevent further damages.
Do not neglect to shut outside water resources, as well, such as your connection for the yard residence. Doing this will protect against added water from filling your plumbing system. With more water, more ice will certainly load up, which will at some point lead to rupture pipelines. It is best to call a professional plumber for an inspection if you are unsure about the state of your pipelines this winter months. Taking this aggressive strategy can conserve you hundreds of bucks in repairs.
All house owners that live in warm climates must do their ideal to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can spell calamity like frozen, broken, or ruptured pipelines. If the warm towels do not help displace any type of working out ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight into them might aid. Turn off the main water shutoff right away if you notice that your pipelines are totally frozen or nearly nearing that stage. With even more water, more ice will certainly stack up, which will eventually 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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