Pro Handyman Blog

The cold weather can turn your plumbing into a nightmare. It only takes a few dollars and under an hour to prevent a problem.

You need to wrap any exposed piping to insulate it. You can buy enough pipe insulation for you house for around $15.00. Some of it has two mating sides with peel-and-stick tape to hold it together, and the other type has a slit in it that wraps around the pipe, and you can tape that type up yourself.

Pay attention to the pressure vacuum breaker (anti-siphon valve). When the weather turns freezing, this is one of the first calls we get. Wrap the piping going in and out of it and also wrap the valve itself. You can do this with insulation tape or you can fashion something out of the pipe insulation. You will notice there is an air gap at the top of the valve. Don’t block this area with insulation.

If you have any hose bibs that stick out too far from the wall, wrap the exposed ½ inch pipe leading to it. If you have a crawl space under your house, use heat tape plugged into an outlet to keep the plumbing warm, just don’t overlap the tape upon itself.