When it comes to plumbing all the potential dangers can occur anytime. The nature of water expanding when it freezes is not problematic for ice cubes, but when the cold spell hits inside your plumbing, you might face unexpected hurdles such as frozen pipework or blocked drains. A frozen pipe crack can result in a flood inside your home. But emergencies like this can be prevented by taking care of the pipes, faucets, and other parts.
To maintain a healthy, efficient water system and to prevent catastrophes, you must prepare your plumbing for winter. In this article, we have gathered seven effective winter plumbing tips to help reduce the risk of plumbing disasters, thus keeping your mind at ease.
Prevent Frozen Pipes by Switching Off Outside Water Valves
During winter the temperature drops below freezing point, which may result in frozen water inside your pipes. This whole situation has the potential to rupture and burst your pipes with water damaging expensive parts of your house. This incident can be prevented by turning off all outdoor faucets at their shutoff valves. The pipes of the uninsulated areas of your home need to have the heating on at a constant low temperature as these pipes are most likely to freeze. Wrapping foam around the pipes for the colder months is a good way to dodge issues. You can also insulate your pipes using insulating tapes. You can hire a plumbing contractor before winter and get all of your pipes ready with the proper amount of heat paddings.
Also, letting faucets drip slowly with little water moving can avoid freezing and the wastage of water. Keep checking your pipes to make sure there’s no frost or ice piling inside.
Unblock Guttering and Prevent Blocked Drains
Keep the gutter always clean. If leaves or any other debris gathers inside, there can be serious damage when the temperature plummets. Drain guards can also be used to heat up the pipe areas. Also, a Wi-Fi thermostat connected with your smartphone can send you emails or texts as an alert when the temperature descends.
Also, it is crucial to follow the steps to prevent blocked drains. Pouring oil, grease, or hard to grind substances should be avoided, or else, this could result in waste pipe blockages, causing the odor.
Disconnect Hoses
Outdoor plumbing should be paused until the warm season. Make sure that all outdoor faucets, irrigation systems, water lines, or systems are disconnected and turned off as the connected hoses can bring up ice in the pipes inside your house. The result of this could turn out to be frozen water inside of the pipes. This could lead to piper bursts. So, disconnect all the external water system faucets, drain them, and put them away for winter.
Do Not Turn the Heating Too Low!
It’s natural to be away from your house for a vacation or something else. You might want to save some money and energy by turning the heat down then. That’s not a bad practice, but during winter, turning the heat down too low can result in catastrophes inside your house.
If your pipes crack during the time you’re away from your house, it will cost you, even more, to get everything back on track.
The heating process should be maintained even while traveling. You should at least keep the temperature at 45°F to prevent any uninvited damage. Being proactive and getting maximum savings with the best solution is always worth it!
You need to think rationally and not economically when it comes to keeping your home safe.
Kitchen Drains Should Never be Clogged and Maintaining A Careful Disposal System
Disposal of cooking leftovers and waste is a critical factor that affects your plumbing system to a large extent. For instance, meals and feasts during the holidays every year mean a huge deal of oils and fats cooked and leftover to scrape.
If they’re let down through your drain pipes, all the clogging is bound to create a chaotic mess on your behalf. If you don’t want this to happen in any case, use grease whilst dealing with the cooking dish itself before throwing it in the bin.
Turn your garbage disposal system on, and introduce the debris from the food afterward. Turn it off once all its work is done. Now, pour a considerable amount of water into the drain to make sure your disposal system’s up and running before the next challenge!
Eliminate Drafts & Drain the Heater
There could be places where the water supply system could remain unheated such as garages, balconies, cellars, rooftops, etc. To prevent cold airflow into these places, insulating cold and hot water pipes can eliminate the drafts. The septic tank should be monitored as well. The tank could witness layers of snow which would be a disaster. The water heater needs to be properly drained and kept within 125 degrees.
If not, then the sediment can cause the water tank to develop rust inside, which can contaminate your shower, cooking, and drinking water.
Know the location of your Home’s Main Water Valve
Damage to your plumbing will always come unexpectedly. To revive the system after major incidents or to block major damages as soon as possible, the best solution is to turn off all the water in your home. You need to know about the exact location of the main valve to ensure this. Also, make sure you know where the stop valve projects and how to the main water supply system of your house. The valve is usually positioned beside the water meter.
Before winter, checking on the main switch by turning it off and on is a must. Also, have the numbers of qualified technicians in a diary. Be prepared to tackle any type of circumstance always.
Most of the people out there do not react unless something goes wrong in their life. The same goes for plumbing issues. It’s always beneficial to know how to respond when a plumbing issue occurs as it saves you money and time. Always hire a plumber and don’t try to resolve the issues yourself.
