ORLANDO, Fla. — For the first time in years, this weekend’s temperatures will put Central Florida homes at risk of having frozen and burst water pipes – and ultimately, messy and expensive clean-ups.
That’s why it’s important to take action now to prevent that from happening, Tim Miller of Green Frog Plumbing said.
Most homeowners do not need to rush off to the hardware store and spend a lot of money. Miller said it’s not the cold temperatures that will do a pipe in, but the cold wind pushing against the pipe.
He offered several easy solutions that will keep someone like him from fielding an emergency call to your home:
- Cover your pipes
Miller said the first step to protecting your home is to cover all exterior pipes and outdoor water equipment.
Specifically, he said you should put a barrier between those pipes and connections and the wind blowing against them.
That can be done with foam pipe insulation, though it can be difficult to squeeze the foam into corners, in tight spaces and around faucet heads.
He said homeowners can use spare towels and rags from their closets, along with some zip ties or duct tape to hold them in place, or – even better – put those towels over the foam pipe insulation.
The towels don’t have to be tightly wrapped around each pipe or faucet, either. Just secured enough to create that barrier to prevent the wind from touching them.
“Towels, duct tape, zip ties, whatever you need to cover the piping,” Miller said. “This is going to keep the wind chill from freezing your pipes. That’s what we’re majority concerned about.”
Miller also recommended disconnecting all hoses and paying special attention to metal irrigation backflow preventors, which he said will be the first to freeze because they’re often made of brass.
In places like Altamonte Springs, those are often located in the front of a house, where they’re much more exposed to wind.
Pipes in attics, crawl spaces, under mobile homes and inside walls are protected enough that Miller said covering them wasn’t necessary.
- Drip your faucet
Miller said everyone with exterior pipes and walls – including people in mobile homes – should drip a faucet inside their home when the temperatures plunge.
He said even the slowest drip possible without shutting the faucet off is enough to prevent the pipe from freezing, which avoids wasting water and running up water bills.
“It just creates a little bit of water movement in your pipe overnight and the non-static water will have a much harder time freezing than static water,” Miller explained.
Only one faucet inside the house needs to be dripped. Miller recommended choosing the faucet furthest away from your water main.
- Turn your irrigation off
Miller reminded homeowners to turn their irrigation systems off so they didn’t risk water getting into the equipment and freezing after the system shut off.
The actual underground equipment, he said, will survive the hard overnight freeze – as will any other underground equipment like a septic tank.
- If your pipe bursts
Miller said homeowners should locate their water main shut-off valve now, so they know where it is in case the worst happens, and make sure it works.
If they do find a burst pipe, Miller said the homeowner should turn off that valve immediately and stop the water supply to their house.
He said the exterior pipes on a home hold too much pressure for a homeowner to safely try a DIY repair.
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