The cold winter season has hit the Minnesota area. While you’re likely preoccupied with your heating system for the upcoming season, you don’t want to forget about your plumbing system. We’ll share our best tips to help you avoid having frozen pipes this winter.
Why Are Frozen Pipes a Concern?
When your pipes freeze during the winter, you may think that it creates only a slight inconvenience. The most obvious problem is that you won’t have fresh water until the lines thaw. However, the damage doesn’t stop there. When water freezes into ice, it expands. The water inside your pipes pushes against the piping material, causing it to distort.
Sometimes, piping can develop a leak or crack due to expansion. While you won’t notice a water leak when the cracking occurs, you will once the line thaws. If you’re not home or you don’t notice the leak, it can cause extensive water damage to your home and drive up your water bill. It is best to implement some helpful practices to prevent pipes from freezing throughout winter.
Insulate
One of the best ways to prevent frozen pipes during the cold winter season is to insulate them. You can use various insulations depending on your budget and your particular situation. Styrofoam insulation tends to be a popular choice for long, readily accessible pipe runs. However, spray foam may be a better option for pipes in hard-to-reach areas.
You should aim to insulate all your water supply lines to help prevent them from freezing. Don’t skip over your hot water lines, either. Adding insulation to these lines can help to better regulate the temperature and prevent a drop in temperature as water travels from your water heater to the various fixtures throughout your home. Insulation can even be beneficial once placed around your tanked water heater to help retain more heat and reduce the energy usage of your water heater unit.
Shut-off Water To Unheated Areas
It’s a good rule of thumb to shut off water to any unheated areas of your home or the outdoors. These include your hose bibb, irrigation system, outdoor kitchen, and unheated garage. These pipes are more susceptible to freezing temperatures than those inside your home. If you’re not going to use water in these areas throughout the cold winter season, simply turn off the shut-off valve for all of these locations.
If there is a bleeder valve, opt for draining the pipe to prevent any freezing from happening. If there’s no way to drain the pipe, then be sure to leave the valve for the faucet or fixture open. As water expands because it freezes, it will push out of the fixture and likely prevent distortion of the pipe.
Implement Heat Cables Where Necessary
Unfortunately, you may be unable to shut off the water supply to some areas more susceptible to freezing. For example, you may need to have water access in your unheated garage for a sink or toilet. It’s typically best to use a heating cable for these locations to help keep the water inside the piping above freezing.
These cables include a long insulated cable wrapped around your pipe and a thermostat. When temperatures start to dip close to freezing, the thermostat turns on the heating cable, which is powered by electricity. This warms up the line and ensures that it doesn’t freeze when temperatures drop.
Always Keep Your Heating System On
If you know that you’re going to be spending days or even weeks away from your home during the wintertime, you may consider turning off your heating system to save money on your heating bills. While this can certainly be effective for lowering your heating bills, it can end up resulting in frozen water pipes that cause costly damage to your home. It’s best to always ensure that your heating system remains on throughout the entire winter season. Most HVAC professionals recommend setting your heating system no lower than 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit when you’re going to be away from home.
Open Enclosed Areas
When you know that temperatures will be in the low teens or colder, you’ll want to take some extra steps to help prevent your pipes from freezing. Enclosed areas are the most susceptible to freezing inside your home. One of the best things you can do to help prevent this unfortunate scenario is to open up any enclosed spaces. The most common are underneath your sinks in the kitchen and bathrooms.
By opening the doors, you can circulate the hot air from your home around the water supply lines to keep them from freezing up on you. If there are any areas of your plumbing system that your home’s heating system just doesn’t seem to get to, you may want to consider adding a space heater to those locations to help keep your water lines from icing up on you. Furthermore, you may want to consider opening up the furthest faucet from your water supply line. By allowing it to have a continuous drip, you can greatly reduce the risk of the pipe freezing. This is because moving water is harder to freeze than water that’s standing still.
How To Handle a Frozen Pipe
If your pipe happens to freeze, regardless of all the precautionary methods you take, it’s important to respond correctly to the issue to minimize the damage that occurs. A necessary first step is to shut off the water supply to that area to prevent excess water from leaking out of the pipe once the ice thaws. Next, you can use a heating device to help warm the pipe. Stick to devices that do not have a flame, like a heat gun or a blow dryer. You want to avoid heating the water to a boiling temperature, as that can damage your pipes.
Once your pipe unfreezes, visually inspect it for leaks or damage. If you notice water leaking or major distortion in your piping, it’s best to have one of our plumbing professionals assess the situation further and provide repairs where necessary.
Protect Your Homes Crawl Space or Basement
To prevent frozen pipes in crawl spaces or basements, seal cracks, vents, and openings to prevent cold drafts. Next, heavy-duty plastic sheeting or vapor barriers should be laid down on the ground to lower moisture levels and keep temperatures steady. For added protection, insulate any exposed pipes with foam pipe insulation or wrap them with heat tape. For extra warmth, you can also add insulation to the walls of crawl spaces or the ceilings of basements.
Expert Plumbing Repair Service
Northern Air Plumbing & Heating offers expert plumbing repair services in the Aitkin, MN area. We can help you with all your general plumbing needs, including drain cleaning, sump pumps, leak detection, water softeners, and water heaters. Our company can also assist with heating, air conditioning, and indoor air quality, including AC, furnace, ductless mini-split, geothermal, air exchangers, and air purifier needs. Call Northern Air Plumbing & Heating‘s office today to schedule a service consultation with one of our plumbers or HVAC technicians.
Tags: Plumbing, Plumbing Tips