The spookiest part about Halloween season has nothing to do with ghost stories, haunted houses, or teenaged hooligans toilet-papering your house. Instead, it’s the feeling of winter on the loom. That hint of colder temperatures reminds you of the January deep freeze and all the awful inconveniences that come along with it.
Amongst the most poignant of those inconveniences is the risk of your pipes freezing - then bursting - in sub-zero temperatures. In fact, it’s been reported that burst pipes are the most common cause of property damage in the throes of frigid winters, commonly denting your bank account with over $5,000 in water damage.
The Pipe-way Less Traveled
Many homeowners avoid the danker places of their humble abode. Basements, attics, and garages often lack the TLC reserved for kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, and living rooms. What they also have in common is they are unheated interior spaces, and pipes running through these rooms are most susceptible to freezing. However, pipes running through cabinets and exterior walls aren’t 100% safe guarded from sub-zero catastrophes.
Thankfully there’s a relatively simple and cheap solution to protect you from disaster, in the form of pipe insulation. It’s highly affordable at around 50 cents per linear foot at most local hardware stores. By insulating any vulnerable piping, you’ll side step costly snafus for the price of a couple of cartons of eggs. Coincidentally, pipe insulation is as valuable to healthily running home as eggs are to a healthy diet!
How to Hibernate Efficiently
Just like a grizzly bear, you’d prefer to never leave your bedroom come winter time—if not for your pesky need for a paycheque. So, you want to make sure you’re amply prepped to keep your pipes running once the temperature starts dropping.
There’s a temperature threshold of 20° F according to studies completed by the University of Illinois, particularly with uninsulated pipes running through uninsulated spaces. While these steps may seem wasteful and Megan Drew preaches water conservation and utility savings, these steps will prevent financially damning repair costs in the long run:
· Keep garage doors closed (this is even more crucial when water supply lines run through the garage)
· Opening kitchen and bathroom cabinets lets warmer air circulate around your plumbing
· Allow cold water to drip from a faucet served by exposed pipes. Any amount of running water through the pipe stops freezing
· Don’t skimp on your heating. It may keep your utilities higher than you want, but while you can bundle with layers, your pipes can’t (especially if you haven’t insulated them) and it’s becomes much more likely they’ll freeze. Keep your thermostat at the same inhabitable temperature day and night
· If you’re going away during the winter season, don’t set your temperature to anything lower than 55° F
· Add insulation to your attics, basements, and crawl spaces (for reasons mentioned above). To ensure there’s no drafts, seal cracks and openings around windows, doors, and at sill plates
While we’ve offered several preventative measures for frozen pipes, sometimes you can do everything correctly but still get frostbitten. In which case, Megan Drew is a cool hand in the face of cool temperatures, thawing your pipes with efficiency and expertise. If you live in York Region and your pipes are frozen, or you’re faced with any other plumbing or mechanical snafu, either contact us through our website or give us a call at 647-297-9852!
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