Prevent Your Pipes from Freezing!

As you stock up on firewood, dust off the snow shovels and ice scrapers, and otherwise prepare your home for the colder months ahead, don’t ignore your plumbing system. Even a short spell of Freezing  temps can cause water pipes to freeze, crack, and even burst. Yet with a few simple precautions, you can save yourself the time, frustration, and money of a costly repair and cleanup.

Indoors

• Keep crawl space vents closed during the winter and add insulation to the openings.
• Insulate interior pipes located in unheated and uninsulated areas of your home – like the garage or basement.
• If your laundry room or bathroom are located next to or above an uninsulated garage, keep the garage doors closed to retain as much heat as possible.
• If bathroom or kitchen water pipes run along an exterior wall, keep cabinet doors open to allow warm air to circulate.
• If a deep freeze is forecasted, use a small fan or space heater to circulate air around otherwise unheated pipes and keep faucet water on at a slow drip overnight. It’s much more difficult for a pipe to freeze when its contents are moving.
• Heading somewhere warm this winter? Set your home’s thermostat to at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit and have a friend, family member, or neighbor periodically check on your home.

Outdoors

• Disconnect, drain, and store all water hoses.
• Shut off all external faucets and install faucet covers or freeze caps.
• Turn off and drain your in-ground sprinkler system. You may want to call in the pros for this one if you are unfamiliar with the process.
• Know the location of your main water shut-off valve in case you’re forced to deal with a frozen and cracked pipe. After shutting off the water, turn on all the faucets to allow water to drain and release pressure.

Sounds simple enough, right? But sometimes we forget to take even the most obvious cautionary measures. Or, those we employ simply don’t work. So, should a frozen pipe episode befall you, you won’t be left to deal with it on your own – not when Norhio Plumbing is right here – where you need us – to lend a helping hand. Norhio Plumbing – for all your home plumbing needs.