If you are planning to leave your house vacant for the cold months of winter, it’s best to winterize the house before leaving.
Winterizing your plumbing before you leave makes your house ready for any harsh weather, thereby preventing potential damage to your plumbing.
Wintertime is tough on your plumbing. The extra cold can cause the pipes to freeze and eventually burst, resulting in flooding.
You don’t want to return home to pipes that have burst or an awful smell coming from your drains.
This process involves taking a number of measures to prepare household plumbing for freezing temperatures. Proper winterizing will prevent problems like burst pipes, gas leaks, and other plumbing problems that come with extremely low temperatures.
Below are tips to winterize plumbing in a vacant house.
The first and most important thing to do when prepping a vacant house for the cold months is to shut off the water at the main valve. Leaving the water on when you are not going to use it for an extended period of time will only lead to burst pipes and water leaks when the temperatures dip downwards to extreme levels.
Locate the main water valve inside your house and turn the wheel valve or handle in a clockwise direction to shut off the water supply.
When you turn off the water supply, you don’t want any water to remain in your waterlines, plumbing fixtures, and appliances. Ensure you turn on the faucets on all fixtures or appliances in your house and let them drain completely. This includes sink faucets, outdoor faucets, water heaters, bathtubs, washing machines, ice maker, dishwashers, and other water-using household appliances. Draining all fixtures and appliances in your house prevents any residual water from freezing.
Flush all the toilets in your house after you’ve shut off the main water valve. This will prevent any water from freezing and cracking your toilet.
Pour ½ gallon into your drain lines to prevent any residual water from freezing. For your toilet, pour antifreeze in the toilet tank and then flush it.
This reduces the risk of accidental release, which can result in a disaster when you are away from home.
It’s a good idea to insulate pipes located in unheated spaces for added protection against the cold winter.
If you live in Ohio Valley or the nearby areas and need help with winterizing your plumbing, contact the nearby plumbers at Mr. Rooter Plumbing for reliable assistance.
At Mr. Rooter Plumbing, we provide reliable plumbing repair service to help you restore your plumbing to its perfect working order. Whether you’re looking for pipe repair, leak repair, drain cleaning, plumbing system maintenance, or sewer line repair, we’ve got you covered.