Enjoy This Year’s Holiday Season by Avoiding These Plumbing Headaches

The holiday season is that blissful time of year when you gather with your family and friends to enjoy each other’s company, share meals and make memories together. If your plumbing isn’t working well, that idyllic scene will quickly turn chaotic and inconvenient.

Don’t wait and hope for the best that your plumbing will be there through the holiday season. Take care of a few things now before you experience a plumbing problem at the most inopportune time.

1) Make sure water is flowing freely from all the faucets.

Take a stroll around your home and make sure that all the faucets turn on and off and that the hot and cold water is running correctly. If you identify any leaks, take care of them straight away. A leaky faucet is easy to fix, but pooling water from a leak can cause water damage.

If the water isn’t flowing properly from the tap, find out first of all if it is limited to just one faucet. If all your faucets aren’t working, you may have turned the water supply off somehow, so check that first.

If it is limited to an individual faucet, check to see if a pipe is frozen somewhere. That could be the culprit.

 2) Make sure that the water heater is protected from cold air.

If you have a newer water heater, it probably is insulated already. If not, you may want to invest in a water heater jacket to keep your tank warm. It can help increase water temperature as well, making your tank more energy efficient.

3) Make sure that the temperature in the house is higher than 55° F to prevent pipes from freezing.

If you are going to be away for an extended period, resist the urge to shut the furnace down completely. You need the interior of your home to be at a steady 55 degrees to avoid frozen pipes. So turn the furnace down, but not off. As an extra precaution, turn off the water supply to avoid a burst pipe situation.

4) Turn off the Shut-off valve on exterior hoses.

It’s not just your interior pipes you need to worry about freezing. Avoid frozen pipes by removing hoses and winterize your faucets by draining them and then shutting off the safety valve (so that the pipes will be unaffected).

5) Use foam insulation on exposed pipes.

Wherever a pipe is exposed to the elements, you need to make sure that you take extra steps to keep it warm enough to keep water from freezing. Wrapping them in foam is a good trick to do just that. Foam works well on exterior pipes, but don’t forget pipes in areas of your home that are less heated, like basements or crawl spaces. In older homes especially, the temperature can vary greatly from room to room and floor to floor.

6) Take care of your sump pump.

When’s the last time you looked at your sump pump? They don’t last forever, so you’ll want to inspect it to make sure that everything is in working order. If you should experience a burst pipe, you are going to count heavily on that sump pump to keep your home from experiencing serious water damage. Clean out the pump’s inlet opening from residue, to make sure that is ready to go, if need be.

Can we be of assistance with your plumbing maintenance in Reading, PA? Call The Plumbing Works today at (610) 929-8860.