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Winter Water Tips

Protect Your Pipes: Frozen pipes can be costly and cause a lot of damage your residence, including flooring, drywall, and personal belongings. Following these tips can help prevent your pipes from freezing, bursting and causing costly damage.

Outside your Home:

• Turn off outside faucets and disconnect the hose wrap all outdoor faucets with rags, newspaper or insulating material. • Keep your crawl space under your house warmer: Cover foundation vent holes and insulate any exposed pipe. • Patch cracks and insulate holes nears doors, windows, and walls by pipes and meters • Insulate the foundation walls and the ends of the floor joists with rigid foam insulation. •

Inside your Home:

• Keep a trickle of water running from your indoor faucets during prolonged freezing spells. • Keep cabinet doors below sinks open so that the warm interior air can get to your pipes and drains. • If you're leaving home for a few days, keep your heating system turned on to a low temperature so that some heat is available to keep pipes from freezing. • If you leave home for the winter, turn off the main shut-off valve to your water supply and drain your faucets.

If you suspect a leak:

If you suspect a leak, turn off everything carefully so no water is being used anywhere in the house. Check the position of your water meter dial. Make a note of the reading and then check it again in about 15 minutes. If the dial hasn't moved, you have a relatively water-tight home. But if it has, start checking hose connections, faucets and toilets. Sometimes a meter will indicate a leak when everything seems tight. In these cases, the leak may be hidden underground in the pipes.

Call a plumber for advice.

Fix dripping faucets immediately. A faucet that drips once per second wastes2,300 gallons of water a year. Most household leaks are easily fixed by replacing worn parts.