Winter is coming up, which means it’s time for a quick refresher on keeping your pipes warm, happy and most importantly, thawed.
As the weather outside continues to get tougher, the temperatures inside your home can drop with it, causing pipes to freeze and even burst before you even know something’s wrong.
At Petri Plumbing & Heating, we’ve got more than a century of Brooklyn winters under our belts, and we’d like to use that experience to help you keep your home safe until spring.
This one sounds counterintuitive, but trust us, leaving a little trickle of water running through your indoor faucets can go a long way to keeping those pipes from freezing.
Most homeowners don’t think about this, especially if their homes already had insulated pipes before they moved in. But it’s worth taking a look at the insulation on those pipes to patch up any holes or peeling material. In many older homes, newspaper or other thin insulation can be common, and that doesn’t offer much protection from the cold.
When pipes run along uninsulated exterior walls or through crawlspaces, they can lose heat quickly. During a cold snap, these spaces can often be as cold or even colder than the exterior temperature, since they’re less likely to receive heat from the sun. Insulating the crawlspace can be a good way to prevent this from happening, and basements and other open spaces, like unheated rooms in your home, can be kept warm with a UL-listed electric space heater.
Once your indoor faucets have been taken care of, remember to winterize any exterior faucets by shutting off the water flow at their interior valves and draining them afterwards. Keep the exterior valves open after all the water has been drained to prevent any leftover water from creating an increase in pressure if it freezes.
If you notice a sudden and unexplained drop in water pressure in any part of your home, or the cold water becomes colder than normal, one of your pipes might be starting to freeze. Remember to leave the faucet on a slow trickle, and then call a licensed plumber to find and solve the problem.
If you’re worried about your pipes freezing, Petri Plumbing & Heating can help protect your home from an unfortunate and expensive cleanup. Contact Petri online or give us a call at (718) 748-1254 to schedule a whole-home plumbing inspection and ensure your pipes are safe for the winter.
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