Low temperatures and high winds during the winter months can cause plumbing pipes to freeze inside the wall. Vacant homes without perpetual heating can also cause pipes to freeze. The consequences of frozen pipes can be very serious and extremely expensive to repair. Also, since cold weather tends to affect many people within a particular region, plumbing services are often in high demand and parts are hard to come by. A burst water main can potentially leave you high and dry for days on end. Take the following steps to ensure your water pipes will survive cold weather.
Always leave a dripping faucet on every fixture in your home if you anticipate a frost coming your way. This is especially true for faucets that have supply pipes that run to the outside of your home, even if only for a short period. When water is moving, it’s much harder to freeze than water still in a pipe.
Turn off the water to outside faucets before freezing strikes. Also, after turning off the main water supply, purge all tap water to ensure all pipes are empty. When water freezes inside a pipe and then thaws when the weather warms up again, the ice expands and is very likely to rupture the pipe. This is one of the most common scenarios that hundreds of thousands of people face each spring.
If you have cabinets containing pipes that are adjacent to outside walls, leave the cabinet doors open during a freeze. An enclosed space like under the sink, especially if it faces an outside wall, will be less exposed to heat and therefore much more likely to freeze in cold weather. Leaving the cabinet doors open will allow the heat from your home to keep the pipes from freezing.
It is imperative that you insulate as much as you can before the winter months arrive. This includes all plumbing that is exposed to the elements outside and, where possible, pipes inside the walls as well. Before the first big frost of winter, people rush to hardware stores and often quickly clean all the insulation off the pipes. Be sure to plan ahead so you don’t get stuck in a bad situation.
If you plan to leave your home unattended for any length of time during the cold months of the year, it is very important to plan accordingly. Make sure you have a working thermostat that is set to keep the house at a proper temperature. It’s also a good idea to have a neighbor check on your house while you’re gone, as a total freeze-up of pipes resulting from a faulty heating system can be terrible.
If you have frozen pipes that need immediate attention, there are a few steps you can take before the plumber arrives, including turning up the heat in the room, exposing the pipe, and if available, pointing a space heater at the frozen pipe.
Remember, there are a few simple steps you can take to make sure your plumbing survives even the harshest winter.
