How do you feel when it comes to Winterizing Your Pipes?
All home owners who live in warm environments must do their best to winterize their pipelines. It is something you have to do throughout autumn prior to deep winter truly starts. Failure to do so can lead to catastrophe like frozen, cracked, or ruptured pipes. Below are some helpful winterizing hacks to maintain your plumbing system secured even if the weather condition exterior is frightful.
Turn On the Faucets
When the temperature declines and it appears as if the frigid temperature level will certainly last, it will aid to transform on your water both inside as well as outdoors. This will certainly keep the water streaming with your plumbing systems. You'll end up losing gallons of water this means.
Open Closet Doors Hiding Plumbing
When it's cool outside, it would be valuable to open up cabinet doors that are masking your pipelines. Doing this small technique can keep your pipelines warm and also restrict the potentially harmful results of freezing temperatures.
Take Time to Wrap Exposed Water Lines
One easy and also cool hack to heat up cold pipelines is to cover them with warm towels. You can also utilize pre-soaked towels in warm water, simply don't fail to remember to use safety handwear covers to guard your hands from the warmth.
Try a Hair Clothes Dryer or Warmth Weapon
When your pipes are almost freezing, your trusty hair clothes dryer or heat gun is a blessing. Bowling hot air directly right into them may aid if the hot towels do not assist displace any type of working out ice in your pipes. However, do not utilize various other objects that produce direct fires like a blow torch. This can cause a bigger catastrophe that you can not regulate. You may wind up harmful your pipelines while trying to thaw the ice. And also over time, you may also wind up shedding your house. Be careful!
Shut Off Water When Pipelines are Frozen
If you discover that your pipelines are completely icy or practically nearing that phase, transform off the primary water shutoff promptly. 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 now to prevent additional damage.
With more water, even more ice will certainly pile up, which will ultimately lead to burst pipelines. If you are uncertain about the state of your pipes this wintertime, it is best to call a professional plumber for an examination.
All house owners who live in pleasant environments need to do their finest to winterize their pipelines. Failure to do so can spell calamity like icy, split, or burst pipelines. If the warm towels do not assist dislodge any kind of resolving ice in your pipelines, bowling hot air straight right into them might help. Turn off the main water valve right away if you discover that your pipes are totally icy or nearly nearing that phase. With more water, even more ice will certainly load up, which will ultimately lead to burst 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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