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24 Restore has some Fall water tips to help you keep pipes from freezing this winter. Here are some tips for inside and outside your home to help prevent water damage this fall in Minneapolis.
Carefully check your irrigation systems and turn off or adjust all irrigation run times and spray pattern to avoid creating overspray where dangerous ice could form in the morning or evening until your system is turns off and winterized. Once freezing weather hits, most plants become dormant and their water requirement is low. Do your part to reduce potential for accidents and liability caused by ice from your irrigation systems.
Caulk around pipes where they enter the house and close all foundation vents. This will stop cold winter air from blowing into your house. Open foundation vents are probably the greatest cause of frozen or split water pipes. You will not only protect your pipes, but you may also reduce your winter heating needs.
Be sure to remember to open foundation vents again in the spring to prevent dry rot.
Protect outside pipes and faucets. For more new homes the outside hose bibs are frost free, meaning the shut off is actually located deep inside the insulated walls. If you re not sure if the hose bib is frost free, when you turn it off and water continues to drain for a few seconds, this is a good indication that then hose bib is frost-free. If you are not sure or if you do not have a frost free hose bib then you will need to insulate the hose bib. Molded foam insulating covers are available at most plumbing and hardware stores. In sometimes, the outside faucet may have separate valves for outside faucets, shut them off. Then go outside and turn on the faucets to drain water from the line.
Disconnect garden hoses from the faucets, this prevents faucets from trapping water and freezing them. It is a good idea to not only drain the garden hoses, but also store them inside a protected area. This will make them last longer.
Shut off and drain in-ground sprinkler systems including the backflow prevention device and water meters on the irrigation systems. Some systems require blowing the system out with a large air compressor. DO NOT BLOW AIR THROUGH A WATER METER. We, at 24 Restore, highly recommend that you contact a landscape professional with proper equipment and training. Hiring a landscape professional for this service can avoid potential damage to both your irrigation system and the public water system.
Know where your main water shut-off valve is inside of your home. Typically they are located where the water line enters the building. It is very important to know where the valve is located because if a pipe bursts anywhere in the house basement, or crawl space this valve should turn it off. Be sure everyone in the family knows where it is and what it does. This will allow you and others to find the valve quickly in an emergency. It is the property owners or tenants responsibly to protect the water pipes and appurtenances including the water meter, from freezing.
Insulate all pipes in unheated areas. Insulation will help protect pipes from freezing. Check your house for pipes in unheated areas such as the crawl space, attic, garage or basement.
Use insulated tape or molded pipe sleeves and wrap it over the entire length of exposed pipe. Cover all valves pipefitting etc. with insulated tape or fiberglass insulation.
Shut off and drain your water system if you are leaving home for an extended period; on the water heater it is necessary to turn the heating components off before draining the water heater.
Turn off the main water shut-off valve, then go through the house and turn on all faucets, sinks, tube, showers, etc., and flush the toilets. Set your thermostat to 55 degrees. Ask yourself what might happen if your source of heat goes off due to a storm when you are not home.
When leaving the house for an extended time, or if you live in an older home, consider opening cabinet doors in the kitchen and bathrooms. Water lines supplying the kitchen or bathrooms are frequently located next to outside walls. Any air leaks in the siding or insulation can cause house pipes to freeze. Leaving these cabinet doors open when the temperature is below freezing allows pipes behind the cabinets to get more heat.
Thaw the lines safely. If you know where the lines frozen, you can attempt to thaw them with a hair dryer back and forth along the frozen area. Thawing won’t be fast, but it will be safe. DO NOT LEAVE THE PIPES UNATTENDED.
DON’T USE an OPEN FLAME TO THAW FROZEN WATER LINES. It may be fast, but could catch the house on fire.
DON’T USE AN ELETRIC ARC WELDER TO THAW FROZEN WATER LINES. This also causes fire!
When home plumbing is frozen, there is often water available at one faucet. If there is no water at all, the problem may be outside the building.
SHUT OFF THE WATER AND WATER HEATER
If you are unable to find the shut-off valve, or have water leaking in the house from a broken pipe, you may want to call a plumber.
Remember, the best tip of all is to protect your homes before the winter weather hits. By winterizing your home now, you can prevent your home from the damages and inconvenience of frozen water pipes. If freezing weather wreaks havoc on your home inside or out this winter call 24 Restore.
“24Restore came within an hour of our water damage to assess the problem and restore and reconstruct our kitchen and my office. Everyone from 24Restore was professional, kind and did an outstanding job of damage assessment and restoration.”
Your service was excellent. The young man was thorough and very dedicated to completing the job. He’s a good one. I would recommend your services to anyone who need them.
Your team has been absolutely amazing, professional, sympathetic and wonderful. They took my mess and made it manageable as I shed a few tears, which they also consoled with empathy. At a time when we have floods and tornados city wide you responded within hours. Thank, I am impressed and I have passed the word on to many.
Very good experience……everyone I dealt with through 24 Restore was very professional and very kind.
This note is a note of thanks and appreciation of the services provided…..we could even say our home looks better than before we incurred our water damage…Job well done!
I don’t often take the time to write a follow up complimentary letter. However I was very impressed with 24 Restore and felt they went above and beyond to surpass expectations with WOW service. Thank you for the great service and great job that your team did to get my house back in shape.
I have recommended them to many of my friends. They are the only service that I have ever used that always gets my stains out and that clean my carpets beautifully. I can’t say enough good thins about them
Thank you for all the work put in to get out home……It would have been an impossible task for us to have accomplished in such a short time. We appreciate all that you have done for us! We are so grateful!
Yes. I appreciated the ability to funnel all activities thru a one-stop shop proved to be very valuable in a disaster project such as ours demo, construction and finish as well as work directly with insurance company. The team has been professional and those on site have been respectful of our home and schedule.
Alex did a great job scheduling, coordinating, and keeping me informed. He made sure that everything was done in a timely manner. I always felt that my job was a priority. All the workmen did a great job and were very polite. I am pleased with the results. I would highly recommend your company!
From the time of initial contact to the time of job completion was 24 hrs. Very pleased with job outcome. Will definitely use you again. If ever in need.
Response time was awesome. We we’re bewildered by what was happening and what needed to be done. 24hr came in and took care of what needed to be done.
I thought 24 was very professional and timely work.
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Very Professional!
Everyone was on top of everything and got back to me in a reasonable time. Clean up was done absolutely perfect at the end of each job.
The guys who worked here were great, polite, personable and hard workers. They did a great job! So thankful this is over!
Working with the employees at 24restore has been an easy process. They aimed to please.
Kudos to Shelli Abraham especially, she worked with the mortgage company and insurance company so I didn’t have to, I’m a caregiver for my husband with Dementia, she took the pressure off having to deal with them, thanks Shelli.
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