Avoid Water Damage From Freezing Pipes
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When extreme cold weather strikes, homeowners can take some simple measures to protect their homes from damage. One of the more insidious problems that can surprise a homeowner and cause water damage is a frozen pipe. When pipes freeze, they can rupture or break plumbing fittings. Most often the homeowner will never know there was a problem until the weather warms and the pipes thaw. Ensuring the pipes don’t freeze will eliminate a major cause of water damage to your home and save you a ton of money in preventable home repair cost. Here are three simple tips to prevent your pipes from freezing.
3 Simple Tips to Prevent Freezing Pipes
- Winterize your hose bibb (spigot): Even “frost free” hose bibbs fail. It is a good practice to plumb in a shutoff valve to your outside hose bibbs and spigots then remove the supply of water to them before cold weather hits. At the very least, disconnect your exterior garden hoses from the spigot or hose bibb. Ruptured hose bibbs are a common cause of water damage to basements here in Cincinnati. I have an entire article and video on it here: How to Winterize a Hose Bibb
- Check your sump pump discharge line: Even in Cincinnati, OH, many homes will collect foundation water in the sump that must be discharged. Often folks will leave an above-ground discharge line attached in the winter. If this discharge line has insufficient slope to quickly dispense of the water, then it may freeze. When the line freezes the sump pump has nowhere to discharge the water from the sump pit. If this happens you can burn out your sump pump and experience backup water into the basement. In addition, it might be smart to think about adding a battery backup sump pump to prevent basement water damage if you don’t already have one. Here is a video on that: Battery Backup Sump Pumps
- Install pipe insulation in cold areas: Foam pipe wrap is extremely inexpensive and easy to install. Focus on adding insulation to pipes that may not receive as much heat as the rest of the home. These areas include outside walls, attic and crawl spaces. As a precaution, a faucet attached to such an exposed water line can sometimes be protected from freeze by initiating a slow drip to relieve any pressure buildup and keep the water moving. The best way to do this is to start with a slow drip on the hot size of the faucet, then add cold water to make a constant, but small stream.
While there are certainly many more techniques to prevent frozen pipes, these three simple tips will eliminate the most common causes for water leak calls we get here at ProMaster.
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