10 Ways To Prevent Pipe Freeze In Home

How does winter feel in your house? The arrival of winter signals an intense drop in temperature, and homeowners begin to prepare their homes for the impact of this season. It often triggers recaulking windows, adjusting heating systems, and inspecting roofs and chimneys, among other things. However, one thing you need to check off your books to prepare for winter is preventing your pipes from freezing.

A frozen and broken pipe is a common wintertime hazard and can cause substantial property damage up to $5000 in repairs. Water freezes due to cold weather and expands, making water pipes vulnerable to bursting. Note, however, that the pipe does not break at the exact place where the water freezes, but between the position of the ice jam and the faucet. Pipes that freeze are most likely to be those exposed to cold areas such as pool supply lines and unheated regions of your home such as garages, pipes and attics.

In this case, it is essential to apply measures to prevent pipes from freezing and to stop possible structural damage and/or flooding. There are things you can do to make sure this doesn’t happen, and in this article, we’ll discuss how to prevent pipes from freezing in your home and what to do when you encounter such a problem.

How to prevent pipes from freezing in the house

Insulate the pipes

Water systems in cold weather are at risk of freezing pipes because homes are often not built with cold temperatures in mind. Thus, water pipes will be susceptible to freezing and bursting when the cold season arrives. Additionally, holes in vulnerable water supply lines, however small, could facilitates the rupture of these pipes as they allow cooling in the pipe and help freeze the water.

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent this before the winter season. By considering the causes of frozen water pipes that we’ve explained, you can design your home and protect your pipes during the summer and worry less about structural damage or flooding come winter. Follow these recommendations to protect your pipe from freezing:

1. Insulate the pipes

An effective technique to prevent pipes from freezing is through insulation. Pipe insulationis a material (foam, fiberglass or polyethylene) that is layered around the pipe to ensure that the pipes and their contents maintain the right temperature. Although pipe insulation can be expensive, it is effective and incomparable to the amount you can spend on repairs if your pipes fail.

When insulating pipes, you must first recognize unheated areas, especially exterior walls such as attics, garages, and basements, and other cold areas of the home, such as kitchen cabinets, that are most prone to freezing. This ensures a stable water temperature regardless of the season or time of year. In emergency situations where you cannot get pipe insulation, you can use tape or newspaperRon time.

2. Wrap the pipes with heat tape

Heat tapes can be a better and cheaper alternative to pipe insulation. It is an electrical cable wrapped around a pipe to provide heat and prevent it from freezing.

There are two distinct types of heat strips – manual and self-monitoring heat strips. The self-monitoring strip turns on and off automatically thanks to a sensor that detects when heating is and is not needed. However, the manual one will ask you to turn it off and on when needed.

Heat tape is wired into your home’s electrical system to install, and some only need to be plugged into a power source. After installing the heat strips, you can be sure that you will never have to worry about your pipes freezing again.

Wrap the pipes with heat tape

3. Set the thermostat

One thing that helps maintain an average temperature in the winter is ensuring consistency with yourself thermostat, that is, keeping the thermostat at the same temperature in the morning and in the evening. Because while setting your thermostat lower at night will save on your heating bills, it makes your pipes more susceptible to freezing. Therefore, you should consider it more convenient to bear a slight increase in your bills rather than face serious damage if a pipe freezes and bursts.

4. Always keep garage doors closed

Garages are mostly always cold because they are made of smooth concrete and are generally uninhabited. So leaving the doors open will further lower the temperature level of the area and present a greater risk of pipes freezing. Therefore, you should permanently close your garage doors if you have water supply pipes in them.

5. Open cupboards in bitter weather

Opening kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors might not seem like a useful tip, but it is capable protecting your pipes from freezing. Cabinets have little or no hot air, so when you open the cabinet, let the heat circulate through the pipes and prevent ice build-up. You can do this from time to time, especially on a cold night or during the winter.

6. Let the faucets drip

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should leave all the faucets in your house on; that invites the very disaster you are trying to prevent. So first, you need to identify the exposed pipes in your home. Then, when you’ve done that, make sure you leave those faucets dripping no more than a trickle of water per second when you notice bad weather.

This is significant because it makes the water less likely to freeze. Running water, no matter how little, contains friction that dissipates heat from the pipe and makes the water less likely to freeze. It also relieves pressure build-up in pipes and prevents a burst if the water is already freezing.

Leave the faucets running

7. Close-up of cracks or openings

Carefully examine your home for possible cracks or openings to prevent the cold from creeping in and freezing the water in the pipes. Inspect electrical wiring holes, pipes, and dryer vents for leaks; check cracks in windows and sill plates and seal them once they are seen to contain warm air and prevent drafts from entering ductwork.

8. Always keep the heat on

Turning on the heat while at home is normal, especially in cold weather; however, it may not seem very rational to leave the heat on in an empty house. While this may be true, it’s also true that without it on, the pipes in your home tend to freeze and burst while you’re gone. So if you don’t have pipe insulation, it’s best to leave the heat on when you leave the house. You don’t need to keep the house super warm—a temperature of 55 degrees and above can prevent pipes from freezing.

9. Cover access spaces

You will need to cover the access spaces in the house if the weather looks threatening. That will reduce the amount of cold air who enters the house and saves you from burst pipes. You can use pieces of foam large enough to cover the vents and tape them shut.

10. Open the interior doors

Another way to maintain a stable temperature in your home is to leave the interior doors at home. Having a heater in the house is essential in cold weather; however, heat may not regulate throughout the home with the doors closed because some homes are not structured to have even heat distribution. So to ensure that your home has a constant temperature, open interior doors so that heat reaches the areas prone to freezing, such as bathrooms and kitchens.

Open the interior doors

What to do when pipes freeze

The most typical indication of a frozen pipe is a lack of water; the faucet stops the water flow or drips. However, there are other signs, such as frost on pipes and strange smells from a faucet. When you notice any of these and have made sure that the pipe is frozen, you must act immediately and defrost it. However, you can only thaw unbroken pipes; otherwise, you will need to shut off the water system at the main water source and call a plumber to avoid causing a flood.

If you’re sure the pipes aren’t broken yet, follow these tips to thaw them:

  • Turn on the faucet to allow the water to flow through the pipe as you unfreeze the jam; this will help melt the frozen area further.
  • Find the section of pipe that is frozen and apply heat to it with an electric heating pad, electric hair dryer, or heater. Note: Do not attempt to thaw a pipe with an open-flame device such as a propane heater, torch, or coal stove; may result in a fire hazard.
  • Continue this process until water flows freely and full water pressure is restored. Next, check the other faucets in the house for signs of freezing.

Conclusion

Freezing pipes is a reasonable concern that, if not addressed, can lead to bigger problems. So while you’re preparing for winter and making sure you keep your home warm, you also need to remember that your pipes are just as susceptible to freezing if they’re not properly protected.

It is essential to perform effective techniques to prevent the pipe from freezing when temperatures soar. Although you can look for a permanent solution like pipe insulation, there are other methods that can save you in emergency cases, which we have discussed in this article. However, in extreme situations where the frozen pipe has broken before your notice, it is advisable to contact a licensed plumber to avoid causing more problems.