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Insulate Water Lines and Pipes to Prepare Your Home for the Coming Winter

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Plumbing RepairsToday is the first day of autumn, which means that it’s time to think about preparing your home for the coming winter. One of the most frequent calls we get during the winter is to repair damage caused by frozen water lines, a particularly frustrating and costly event for home owners.

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To help our friends in Noblesville, Fishers, and throughout Central Indiana avoid this nasty problem, we offer these tips to help prevent water lines from freezing during the winter months:

  1. Insulate all water pipes from cold moving air and keep them dry. While we can certainly do this for you, it is a pretty simple DIY project for the average weekend warrior. eHow.com has a good article with tips on How to Insulate Your Water Lines.
  2. Use either heater tapes wrapped around the pipes in exposed areas like outdoor water spigots, or a heated reflector lamp in a dry enclosed space like an uninsulated basement.
    1. Heater tapes work with a built-in thermostat. The tape must be wrapped between the pipe and the insulation to work.
    2. If you use a lamp, make sure to check it periodically to see that the light bulb is working on cold nights.
  3. If electricity is unavailable or goes off, let the water run at a slow constant drip; it’s cheaper than repairs.
    1. First, start a slow drip on the hot side faucet, then a faster drip on the cold side faucet.
    2. There is no need to run a lot of water.
    3. Bathrooms can be cold, as long as they aren’t freezing.
  4. Remember to insulate and heat the drain lines in crawl spaces and cold basements.
  5. Always unhook your water hose from your outdoor spigot in the winter, or before the weather in your area starts to get below freezing.
    1. The water inside the hose can freeze, and the freezing continues back into the spigot until it reaches your piping.
    2. If you have PVC plastic piping leading to this spigot, it will burst.
       

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If this all seems like too much for you to handle on your own, 3C Plumbing is here to help. Give us a call at (317) 850-5114. The cost to have us insulate your home’s water lines and pipes will be a lot less than if we need to come out to repair them.