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Every season has its challenges, but winter presents perhaps the biggest challenge to your Winnipeg home’s plumbing system. Fortunately, taking a few precautions can help ensure that your pipes don’t freeze and burst when cold temperatures arrive. Making sure your home is winter-ready is also beneficial if you plan on taking a vacation and leaving it uninhabited for extended periods of time.
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Just follow these 5 winterizing tips and you’ll be good to go:
1. Insulate pipes in unheated areas
Pipes that run through unheated areas of your home, such as in a crawlspace or a garage, should always be properly insulated. Quality pipe wrapping materials made of fiberglass or polyethylene are easily found at home hardware or building supply stores.
2. Seal up any exterior cracks
Holes and cracks along your home’s foundation or outside walls can let in enough cold air to freeze pipes. Make it a part of your yearly fall maintenance duties to scour your home’s exterior and fix cracks with caulking or spray foam insulation.
3. Disconnect all outdoor hoses
Outside hoses that are left connected to their spigots can keep water from draining out of the pipes, causing ice to form. A burst spigot line can go unnoticed until summer, when it shows up on a high water bill. Don’t wait until then; disconnect your hoses in the fall.
4. Note the location of your shutoff valve
In the event that a pipe does burst, it is crucial to know where your master shutoff valve is. Turning off the water can prevent very expensive damage. It is also a good idea to turn off the water before leaving your home to go on vacation.
5. Call a Winnipeg plumber if you have any questions
If you have any more questions about getting your home’s plumbing system ready for the winter, or if it’s too late and you need to repair or replace damaged pipes, then it’s time to call the Winnipeg HVAC technicians at Shorty’s Plumbing & Heating Inc.
Plumbing problems are not an “out of sight, out of mind” issue, as they can cause extensive damage in very little time. Put your heating and cooling system in the hands of professionals and you’ll have nothing to worry about when temperatures drop and if you go for a vacation.
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