3 Ways to Prevent Burst Pipes in Your Home

3 Ways to Prevent a Burst Pipe

[A burst pipe]1 is one of the worst home disasters there is. The most common cause of pipes bursting is freezing during the Montgomery winter months. To ensure you don’t wind up with a burst pipe, there are some precautions you need to take. Here are three of the most important.

Keep your pipes warm.

Pipes that freeze are usually one that are exposed to the elements somehow or are in a location, such as a crawlspace, that don’t have access to much heat or insulation. To ensure none of these pipes freezes during the winter months and bursts, there are several things you can do.

First off, you need to make sure the pipes are properly insulated. Add more insulation if possible to the walls, floor and ceiling in the room where the pipe is. If that isn’t enough, you can insulate the pipes themselves by wrapping them in foam or wrapping towels around them. If you need additional heat in the space, you can run a space heater, but you have to be very careful that there are no flammable materials with which it could come into contact.

Take precautions with pipes that feed outside.

Pipes that connect with an outside outlet, such as those in a sprinkler system or those that go to a hose spigot, present a high risk of freezing and bursting. To prevent that from happening, you need to take several precautions. If you have a separate water source for those things, shut it off once you are done watering for the season. You also need to make sure that you thoroughly drain your sprinkler system. As for outdoor spigots, do not leave hoses connected to them.

Give it an outlet.

The reason frozen pipes burst is because of the pressure that builds up in them. If you relieve the pressure, it prevents the pipe from bursting. To do this, all you have to do is let a faucet run a little bit. It doesn’t have to be more than a steady drip, but that little bit of water movement should keep a frozen pipe from bursting if it freezes.

These simple precautions are easy to do, and though they won’t completely eliminate the risk of a burst pipe, they will go a long way to ensuring it doesn’t happen to your Montgomery home.

Avoid a costly pipe burst with these key tips! Call Cole Plumbing at (334) 458-9413 for repairs in your Montgomery, AL home.