Winterize Your Outdoor Plumbing System

While El Nino is certainly extending the heat of summer throughout the country, it’s best to prepare early for cooler weather up ahead. For your home, now is the perfect time to winterize your outdoor plumbing system so you can free yourself from the hassle of tinkering with or repairing the system when it’s already freezing out there, just to get a steady supply of water both in and out of your home.

It’s best to start off by inspecting all outdoor water faucets and pipes and making sure they’re all drained properly. Close the shut-off valves of all your outdoor water faucets and drain the lines completely, and then leave them open until the arrival of spring. You may also need to use an insulated faucet cover for further protection

And speaking of protection, aside from an insulated faucet cover, you may also need to use spray foam insulation to prevent these plumbing components from freezing. When pipes freeze, they become highly prone to damage; if a pipe bursts, you’ll waste a lot of water—and if it bursts in the exterior wall of your home, the damages can set you back by thousands of dollars. And that’s not just damage to your wall and plumbing; other structural components may get ruined as well.

As for irrigation pipes in the ground, drain them all as well and shut off the water supply to all of them. Meanwhile, do insulate your septic system, too, to prevent the septic tank and the pipes from your home leading to it from freezing and causing wastewater to back up to your home.

There are still so many other things that need to be done in making sure that your septic system will not cause you any trouble in the winter. You may find some of these tasks too difficult and time-consuming to take care of yourself. Therefore, in completely winterizing your plumbing system, do what you can do on your own, but leave all the other complex responsibilities you do not want done twice to us, the professionals.

Also, make certain that you do so before the chilly season hits for your convenience—the last thing you want when you’re celebrating the holidays at home is to be plagued with plumbing issues that prevent your home from being the clean and cozy sanctuary from the cold that it’s supposed to be.

And more importantly, preventive measures or maintenance efforts are definitely so much friendlier to the budget than repair and replacements