Essential 5 Winterizing Hacks to Prevent Your Pipes From Bursting in Cold Weather
About ThisDo you find yourself in search of facts and techniques on How to stop pipes from freezing during the winter?
All house owners who live in warm climates have to do their best to winterize their pipelines. Failing to do so can spell calamity like icy, cracked, or burst pipelines.
Try a Hair Clothes Dryer or Heat Weapon
When your pipes are nearly freezing, your trusty hair dryer or warmth gun is a godsend. If the warm towels do not aid dislodge any kind of clearing up ice in your pipes, bowling hot air straight right into them may help. Nonetheless, do not use various other objects that create straight flames like an impact lantern. This can result in a larger calamity that you can not control. You may wind up damaging your pipelines while attempting to thaw the ice. And also in the long run, you may even wind up melting your house. So be careful!
Open Up Closet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's chilly outside, it would be useful to open cabinet doors that are camouflaging your pipes. Doing this tiny method can keep your pipelines warm and restrict the possibly hazardous end results of freezing temperatures.
Take Time to Wrap Exposed Water Lines
One easy and also awesome hack to heat up icy pipelines is to cover them with warm towels. You can cover them initially with towels. After safeguarding them in place, you can put 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, simply do not fail to remember to put on safety gloves to secure your hands from the heat.
Switch on the Faucets
When the temperature decreases and it appears as if the icy temperature will last, it will certainly help to activate your water both indoors as well as outdoors. This will maintain the water flowing with your plumbing systems. Furthermore, the activity will decrease the freezing process. Notably, there's no requirement to turn it on full blast. You'll wind up wasting gallons of water by doing this. Rather, aim for regarding 5 declines per minute.
When Pipes are Frozen, shut Off Water
If you observe that your pipelines are totally frozen or virtually nearing that phase, turn off the main water valve quickly. You will usually discover this in your basement or laundry room near the heating unit or the front wall surface closest to the street. Transform it off as soon as possible to stop further damages.
With even more water, more ice will load up, which will ultimately lead to rupture pipes. If you are unclear concerning the state of your pipelines this wintertime, it is best to call a professional plumber for an inspection.
All homeowners that live in temperate environments must do their ideal to winterize their pipes. Failure to do so can mean disaster like icy, broken, or burst pipelines. If the hot towels do not help remove any resolving ice in your pipes, bowling hot air straight right into them may aid. Turn off the main water shutoff instantly if you notice that your pipes are totally frozen or nearly nearing that stage. With even more water, more ice will load up, which will eventually 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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