Are Your Pipes Ready For Winter?

Your home’s pipes go through a lot in the winter. With the temperatures outside dropping below freezing on a regular basis, preparing your home’s plumbing for the coming season can help prevent water leaks, burst pipes and other problems. The following tips will help you prepare your pipes for this coming winter.

Insulate Your Pipes

Pipe insulation helps to shield your pipes from extreme low temperatures, and also helps your home operate more efficiently. Pipe insulation comes in self-adhesive tubes that can easily be cut down to the right size and attached to the pipes in your home. If you’re on a budget, you can also protect your pipes by using plastic ties to wrap your pipes in newspaper. For more information about how to insulate your home’s pipes, check out our post on the subject.

If you don’t have time to insulate your pipes, we recommend leaving the water running in the sink and bathtubs on nights when the temperature outside is forecasted to drop into extreme low temperatures.

Drain Your Water Heater

People tend to take long, hot showers to stay warm in winter. This might feel good on your body, but it can be hard on your water heater. This is especially bad for your water heater if it’s been a long time since you drained the sediment from the bottom of the unit. Draining your water heater can improve its efficiency and help prevent a breakdown. If you’re not sure how to drain your homes water heater, check out this tutorial.

Remove the Hose from the Outdoor Spigot

The hose attached to your outdoor spigot is likely to have water in it. When the temperature drops, this water will freeze and back up into your home. This can lead to burst pipes or, at the very least, a damaged hose. To prevent this from happening, remove the hose from the spigot late in the fall and leave the hose somewhere safe in your garage or elsewhere in your home.

Flush Your Sprinkler System

Your home’s sprinkler system is full of water. Leaving those pipes full of water throughout the winter can lead to a burst pipe. The best way to prevent your underground sprinkler system pipes from bursting is to fill the pipes with air and flush out the water. This can be done with an air compressor if you have one in your home. Below we’ve posted a video that can help.

Contact Terry’s Plumbing

Winterizing your home’s plumbing is important for protecting your pipes and avoiding major damage to your home. If you’re not comfortable winterizing your own plumbing, then it’s important to have a plumbing expert do this for you. At Terry’s Plumbing, we regularly perform household tasks like the ones described above. To find out more about how you can protect your plumbing this winter, contact Terry’s Plumbing at (412) 364-9114.