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Useful Steps to ensure that your Water Pipes Don’t burst due to Freezing

Anyone with physics knowledge knows that the volume of water expands largely when its temperature drops below 40 degrees.  As the volume of water increases, it exerts a tremendous amount of pressure onto the inner surface of your pipe and even the best of pipes can sometimes give away under that kind of pressure; water can then flow freely into your house raising causing thousands of dollars in damages.

The effect is devastating.  Thankfully, this can all be prevented.  Although, you have to become kind of helpless with a burst pipe in your home and have to call a professional plumber for help, you can ensure that things like this don’t happen in the first place by following a few simple precautions such as:

(1) If you notice that there’s a reduced flow in the faucets, you should always turn up the heat.

(2) You should open up all your vanity and cabinet doors, at least the ones which have visible water pipes running behind them, this will allow warm air to heat up the water pipes.

(3) If it’s snowing outside, always remove your garden hose from outdoor faucets, even the faucets which are tagged “frostproof” can give away under tremendous pressure if a hose is connected.

(4) Make sure that your garage door is completely closed. A lot of your water mains go through your garage, keeping the garage door open may cause those pipes to freeze up and burst causing invaluable losses.

(5) You might try to use a blow drier to heat up pipes which are outside (exterior walls or in crawl spaces).

However, all the above are only temporary solutions to your problems and it might get very tedious to follow such routine every day. Projects like long-term freeze prevention take a lot of preparation and involve complex fixtures such as installing insulating crawl spaces; one might also try to replace standard outdoor faucets with frost-proof models or and some have even gained success at this by rerouting water pipes from cold exterior spots to warm, interior locations within the house. If you are willing to protect your home from the perils that come from burst pipes, you should start by calling in a professional today to assess your situation and make recommendations.