2 Things To Do To Get Your Plumbing Ready For Winter

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You don't want to have frozen pipes in the winter. At best, it's an annoyance. At worst, the pipes can end up bursting, and you can end up with water all over your house and thousands of dollars in repairs. The solution to that is to do what you can to winterize your plumbing so that you can avoid the dreaded frozen pipes. So, what are some things that you can do to winterize everything?

Pipe Insulation

One thing that you can do is to install insulation on any exposed pipes or any pipes that could end up accessible to the cold. For example, if you have a sink on an exterior wall, you might want to insulate the pipes under that sink since they are at greater risk of freeing. The insulation is pretty easy to get. You can get it from home improvement stores, department stores, and hardware stores. The insulation is basically a long foam tube that has a slit up one side. You can easily cut the insulation and slip it over your pipe. You can then run something like duct tape up the slit to make sure that the insulation stays on and stays closed. Make sure you know the pipe diameter so that you can get insulation that will fit it. 

Drain Your Pipes

If you are going to leave your house during the winter for a long time, you want to drain your pipes. If you have drained them, there's no water to freeze when it gets cold. It's a really easy thing to do. The first thing to do is turn the water off at the meter so that no water is getting in your house. Once you have done that, you need to go to the faucet as far away from the meter as possible. If you have a faucet that is on a second level, you should use that. Turn that faucet on and let it run until no more water comes out of the tap. Then you need to go to your toilets and flush them until no more water comes through. Doing this will get rid of all the water in your plumbing.

You don't want to worry about having frozen pipes. You need to do what you can to keep that from happening. One thing that you can do is to talk to a plumber about home winterization.