How To Avoid Frozen Pipes and Handling Pipe Bursts
During winter, temperatures in Columbus are usually very low, and it’s at this time when pipes freeze and burst. One of the signs of frozen pipes is little to no flow in your faucets. This isn’t the end for you, after all, frozen pipes do not generally mean burst ones. The situation can be rectified by slowly thawing them out.
But the best thing you can do is prevent this from happening at all. Here are a few simple steps to follow:
How to Prevent Freezing in Pipes
1) Shield your pipes from the harshly cold weather. Whenever you expect there’ll be a hard freeze, it’s wise to shield your pipes.
2) Keeps all cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms open, to allow warm air to get to the pipes.
3) Check that the hoses and faucets are not connected, and ensure the faucets outside are turned off.
Another method is, opening the faucets to keep a small stream of water constantly flowing through the pipes, and prevent freezing. However, this isn’t fully guaranteed to work. There might be some instances of freezing.
If you’ll be out of the house for some time, it’s better if you can turn off the water at the main shut-off valve to prevent any possible disastrous water damage, in your absence.
What to Do if Pipes Burst
1) Close the main water valve Whenever there’s a water pipe burst, close the main shut-off valve immediately.
Most family homes have the valve shutting off the water system in the basement or crawl space, on a wall. (can be found at the water meter or at the point the mainline enters the house).
2) Open the faucet(s) to reduce pressure, until all repairs are done. After turning off the main shut-off valve, you can also open hot and cold faucets at the lowest point of the house for water to drain.
3) Never try to thaw a frozen pipe using an open flame since this will damage the pipe and can start a fire in the building.
After following all these simple steps, call a professional near you to check on the damage, and restore everything.
We provide emergency plumbing services repairing your broken pipes and we collaborate with a local company that offers emergency water damage restoration, always available during the day and at night.