Tips on Preventing Burst Water Pipes in the Winter

Living in an older home often means that your water is still running through galvanized pipes. The day comes when you find yourself working on burst water pipes in the dead of each winter. Especially if you are in rural areas and still using well water. The waterlines that run between your well and your home are often not buried deep enough to be protected from cold temperatures. This article will offer tips on replacing these old pipes and eliminating those issues.

If you do live in an area where public water is unavailable, you may want to consider digging up the old pipes and replacing them or burying them at least 24″ into the ground. Most plumbers and experts will tell you that 18″ is deep enough but over time and with erosion that 18″ can become as shallow as 10″.

In this article we would like to concentrate on the pipes within your home. More often then not these pipes will enter a part of your home and have a shut-off valve almost immediately. If not, you will want to install one.

You are likely to have shut-off valves under the sinks and toilet in your home and even leading to your washing machine however, those valves are usually inside the home where it is warm and most people find that in the winter their pipes freeze and burst before that point. If you live in a home such as mine your pipes will run under the house in a crawl space that will not accommodate the average adult. In the winter of 2005 I found myself digging a trench that would allow my body to fit under my home. Some may think that the flood conditions under my home were an asset as the spongy earth would be easier to dig than dry compacted soil.

Water expands as it freezes. This expansion is often to much for older water lines. Just a small break in a pressurized water line will allow hundreds of gallons to flow over the course of a day and can causing extreme damage in some cases. A pressurized line can create even more issues. A hot water line can freeze just as easily as a cold water line if the water is not running.

Below, you will find a list of things I discovered during the process of repairing my plumbing. There are only three tips listed here but these three tips can save you a lot of money, time and work later on.

* As close to the point of entry, after the shut-off valve, to your home you can replace your water lines with Pex Tubing. This relatively new material is composed of layers of poly materials that are flexible, making them easy to install and expandable. (It is also an excellent material for sub-floor heating.) A special pvc fitting must be used to connect the Pex tubing to any metal lines. This material will cost you less than $30 per 100″.

* Wrapping the pipe between where it comes out of the ground to the point of entry to the house with a heat tape and then wrapping it with wall insulation was not enough to keep it from freezing. It is advisable to use insulation made in tubes of different sizes for this purpose.

* Running the piping I used into the house by installing it in the point of entry wall and running it through the attic is also a good idea. Heat rises and although your attic is not heated it is often warmer than even the floors of your home.