How To Prevent Freeze Damage ?

If the temperature inside a house gets below 0 Celsius, it’s likely that the water supply pipes and the drain traps will freeze. When water freezes it expands 9 percent, and if there is no room for expansion it’s possible that the pipe will burst.

When the ice starts melting inside, the pipe will leak and it can be anywhere in the whole supply system. Though a burst pipe can cause a lot of damage and you need to spend a lot of money on it’s repair but a leaking pipe can be even more destructive and expensive.

A properly-insulated house built to current building codes will probably never experience this problem under normal conditions. Normal conditions mean- the heating system runs properly, the electricity supply stays on, and the furnace fuel supply never runs out.

So, the best solution to avoid any such situation is to build the house properly. If an older house has insulation problems, this can be fixed during remodeling. If the work involves removing drywall, then the wall cavities can be insulated properly. Foam insulation can be added to the inside face of the studs, or to the outside walls before siding is replaced, or both.

Insulating the attic space is also beneficial. All these changes will protect your plumbing system but apart from that they will also minimize the home’s heat loss and therefore helps in saving energy.

Making all these improvements during the remodeling project can be very expensive. So if you are not in a mood to spend a lot of money, simply apply electric heat tape around the water supply pipes. These are thermostatically controlled devices and helps in keeping the the pipes warm during very cold weather.

Another easy solution for this problem is to allow one faucet to drip water. This keeps water slowly circulating throughout the water pipes and prevents freezing.

It is generally advised to let the faucet run with a stream of water about the same diameter as a pencil. The stream needs to be warm water if you have both hot and cold water lines that are vulnerable to freezing. This is waste of energy but sometimes you have to follow this in order to prevent some major damage.

Scott Rodgers is a noted author who has been providing great guidance on plumbing works all over the country. His incredible knowledge has, in fact, sparked significant rise in revenue for talented plumbers across the nation, from Pomona Plumbers (Need one? click here!)] to Boca Raton Plumbers (Need one? click here!).