Staving off the big chill indoors
TORONTO — Plunging temperatures have the potential to create a headache for homeowners who may face the risk of freezing pipes if appropriate measures aren’t taken.
Ralph Suppa, president and general manager of The Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating (ciph. com), shares tips on how to help prevent the problem from arising.
Insulate exposed pipes
“In some cases, people in the basement have one of those laundry tubs, and you usually have pipes running up the wall that are connected to another pipe upstairs,” said Suppa.
Insulation can be purchased inexpensively for pipes in the basement touching an outside wall or one located outside and not properly covered, he adds.
Insulation is “the shape of the pipe — which is usually half-inch copper — and there’s a slit down the (middle) … so all it does is it wraps it around automatically for you,” he said.
Have a hose hooked up in the backyard? Remove it. Suppa says there is usually a shut-off valve located inside underneath the sink where the hose is connected.
“They should shut off that valve and open the valve outside so all of the water drips out. This way, you’re not going to be concerned about the pipes bursting.”
Turn on your taps
“There’s pressure built up in the pipes, and if the water’s not moving and that pipe is exposed to cold, then it could freeze,” said Suppa.
“So what you’d need to do … is you open up the faucet a little bit … Because the water’s moving, it’s not going to freeze as rapidly as it could have if it was just sitting in the pipe.”
He suggests opening faucets about one-quarter of the way to help relieve pressure in the pipes.
Turn off the main shut-off valve. In the event of a prolonged power outage — say two or three days — Suppa recommends turning off the main shut-off valve which controls water coming into the house.