Protecting Your Outdoor Plumbing for Winter

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A lot of water can be lost through your pipes without leaving a trace, especially through your exterior pipes. While fixing up persistent drips and monitoring your sprinklers’ intensity level can help keep your summer and autumn water use well-regulated, winter pipes need a bit more care to stop cracks, leaks, and bursts. Here’s how:

  • Dismantle all hoses and sprinklers at their connection points. The rivets and thread on the bibs that connect hoses outdoors are perfect for trapping water, and that water can expand during a freeze, causing cracks when the pressure gets too great. As more winter freezes are soon imminent, mulch your garden plants and water them a final time this season, so you can disconnect the hoses and store them away. The mulch will help your plants retain moisture, so you don’t have to worry about leaving your hoses connected.
  • Insulate more than the pipes. Insulating any exposed pipes in your yard is a great first step to keeping your pipes safe and preventing water loss. However, the spigots and valves are just as susceptible to the cold, even though the metal isn’t quite as thin as pipes’ metal. Once your pipes are insulated with foam covers, protect the top metal with hose covers. This shaped foam insulation helps stop the metal from cracking from extreme temperature shifts that make it expand and contract too quickly. It also protects any rubber seals and gaskets in the apparatus.

Both leaks and burst pipes are main culprits of water loss when they are infrequently used in winter. Protect the nooks and crannies of your pipes by preventing water build-up, even in small crevices, and by insulating every inch of exposed metal. Contact us today for more winter water tips.

Contact Brian Wear Plumbing Today

Feel free to give us a call today to schedule an appointment with a plumber in Columbia, MO, and the surrounding areas. Whether it’s doing drain line maintenance or preparing to replace sewer lines, you are going to be satisfied with our work.

If you are in Columbia, MO or the mid-Missouri area and believe you have a plumbing problem, contact us.