Attention Homeowners: Protect Your Pipes This Winter
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NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Cold weather looms in the forecast, and plumbers say they will see the side effects of frozen, broken pipes usually from home owners who neglected to protect their pipes, thought they had new faucets impervious to freezing or simply didn't know they needed to protect their new home.
"They are just not familiar with thinking about that, you know, taking care of plumbing," said Master Plumber Michael Glover of Glover and Glover Plumbing. "They think about taking care of their pets. They think about their plants. But plumbing they take for granted. And just because it's new does not mean it's not going to freeze."
If you don't already know, you're going to want to first check if your house is on a concrete slab or pier and beam. If it's pier and beam you can use a crawl space and you may have vents or places you can see under the house. You will want to keep the cold air from blowing through there and freezing the pipes. So start by blocking those vents.
No matter what your house is sitting on, you will need to protect the pipes exposed outside. The pipes in the walls in new homes might be PVC or similar material, but the faucets are metal and they will freeze. There are inexpensive styrofoam covers you can buy that and slip it in place right over the faucet. If you don't have time to go to the store, find an old towel and duct tape instead.
"Oh yeah, you can do home remedies,"said Glover, who has more than 30 years of experience in the industry. "You can take towels and wrap it. And some of the older homes the faucets are down in the ground. You can put a bucket over them and put a lid on it and just wrap some insulation or towels or something around it basically just to keep it from being exposed to the environment."
And there is one a big mistake that can lead to broken pipes even if you have the newest faucets on your home.
Even if you have the new frost proof faucets they can freeze if you make one common, costly mistake -- leaving the garden hose attached to faucet. That can cause any faucet to freeze and burst the water line, and you're not going to like what happens after that.
"Typically it leaks on the outside of the house so hopefully most of the water will go to the outside," said Glover. "But it will cause some sheet rock and rock and further damage on the opposite side of the wall. You know, you could spend anywhere from $500 to thousands of dollars thousands of dollars in repairs."