Winters in Arkansas tend to be unpredictable and inconsistent. Is it really going to snow? Are the temperatures really going to be 25° at night and 50° during the day? A couple of years back we ended up with a winter weather warning in Hot Springs. A week earlier, temperatures had been in the 60s so I did not think too much of it. We ended up with 10” of snow and a healthy dusting of ice. Our pipes froze and broke in three places because we had not taken the right precautions. Forget Winter Wonderland, we had a Winter Blunderland.
What did we do? As I have encouraged for all similar incidents, I called a professional. The only problem was that all of the plumbers willing to drive in the hazardous weather were busy fixing burst pipes all over the city and county. However, I had a plumber friend who would make an exception and fix me up immediately.
When he had everything fixed, we were incredibly thankful. I started planning preventative measures for future winters. Here is the strategy I developed, and I wanted to share it with you:
Cover any outside hose bibb with an insulated cover.
These are extremely economical and will last for several winters. We always put ours on when we know temperatures will be dropping into the 30s. They are super simple to install and effective.
Do not leave any hoses attached to hose bibbs.
That may seem redundant based on the suggestion above, but somebody will always think, “Can I still leave my hose screwed on?” The official answer is “no” because the backflow of the hose will cause the hose bibb to be at greater risk of freezing.
Leave your faucets dripping.
In that big freeze, the temperature remained in the 20s for days. So many people had faucets dripping that it was starting to affect the water pressure for the entire city. Some people think it is an old wives’ tale, but this is an important step to saving your pipes in the bitter cold.
The big debate seems to be how many faucets do you leave on. Some people say just one at the furthest point from your water heater. Others say two or three, and some say all of them. My wife and I leave all of them on with a volume of a thin stream that is just slightly ahead of a big drip.
Hot or cold? Leave the cold water dripping. The hot water would cause your water heater to constantly be running and create an additional draw on power. It will cost you more on your utilities to leave that water dripping for a few days, but it will be exponentially less than having a plumbing disaster from freezing pipes.
And that is it. Three simple steps to seriously help avoiding frozen pipes. I have a couple more advanced steps, too. These are projects where you would want to call a professional.
- Replace your piping with Uponor pipe. From their website, “The manufacturing process for Uponor PEX-a pipe results in remarkable flexibility and elasticity, enabling the product to expand up to three times its diameter without rupturing, even when subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations.”
- Install piping insulation. You could do this on your existing pipes or if you change to Uponor’s pipe you could add this for an extra level of protection.
When the snow is falling and Dean Martin is singing “Winter Wonderland” on your favorite streaming service, take preventative measures to keep it from turning into a Winter Blunderland.
Written by: Alan Donahue, Showroom Manager