How To Deal With Frozen And Burst Pipes?
• Always keep your garage door closed if you have water supply lines there.
• Make sure that temperature in your thermostat stay approximately at the same level throughout the day and night.
• If you have a particular zone in the house where freezing pipes are encountered frequently, and then light a lamp of 60-watt there. It will warm the walls and pipes. However, there should not be any combustibles in that area.
• If you have pipes in uninstalled areas, buy foam pipe insulation. This works relatively well. However they will help only in moderate weather.
• Although it is a bit inconvenient, it is useful to keep cabinets open in winter. This allows the warm air circulating through the room to warm up the pipes.
• If you know that your pipes about to freeze, then open the faucet and allow the cold water to drip. The ice that forms in the pipe expands laterally. As a result if there is some water trapped between the ice and the faucet, the ice exerts tremendous pressure on the water. This cause the pipe to rupture. As a result opening faucet relieves this pressure. If the whole pipe is frozen, this won’t help.
• In that case open the faucet and thaw the pipe. You can use hot water bottles, a hairdryer or a towel soaked in hot water. Start from a point that is quite close to the tap. Do not use a naked flame or blowtorch for thawing.
• All homes have a few pipes and wires running at the exterior walls. As a result these walls have some holes drilled in them that are needed to run the wires and pipes. Sometimes walls also develop cracks. Find out such holes near the pipes and seal them. Leave just as much as is required by the wires or pipes to pass through the holes.
• In case a pipe in the house bursts, first of all find out the main water supply. You should look for it in the basement and turn it off. Thereafter turn off the electric supply to prevent shot circuits and electrocution. Contact a plumber in your area ASAP.