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Tips For Winterizing Your Water Heater

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Winterizing your water heater is a necessary chore if you plan to take a holiday vacation with the family and you live in a cold climate where overnight temperatures routinely drop below the freezing point. If you fail to prepare before going away, you may come home to serious problems requiring expensive repairs.

Before working on your water heater, you need to turn off the water supply and turn the gas off or unplug the heater if it is electric. After turning the gas valve off, make sure the pilot light is out. Turn the knob on the heater control box to OFF.

To drain the tank, locate the drain near the bottom and attach an ordinary garden hose. Direct the water flow down the nearest floor drain or to the outside, if possible. If you cannot use a garden hose, drain the water into a bucket and repeat until the tank is empty. When draining the tank, make sure the air vent on top of the heater is open. It can take up to a half hour to drain all the water out depending on what type of heater you own.

After the tank is empty, open the faucets in the basement, bathrooms and kitchen. You may see some water drain out but the flow should stop. Leave the faucets open

You should purchase a water heater blanket to protect the equipment from cold temperatures while it sits idle. A large piece of insulating material wrapped around the unit and held in place with duct tape can serve as an effective makeshift blanket. You should also protect the pipes leading to the water heater. Wrap insulation around the pipes and secure it with duct tape to keep the pipes from freezing and breaking.

Protecting your water heater while you are away is a great way to extend the lifespan of your equipment. If you follow these tips, you can enjoy your vacation without having to worry about dealing with broken water pipes after you return home.

Follow us for more tips and tricks to keep your HVAC system running efficiently and saving you money.

Protecting Your Home Plumbing During Winter Freezes

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People who live in cold harsh climates know better than anyone else about the damage winter can cause to home plumbing. What happens is simple: stagnant water in water pipes freezes when it’s cold, the water expands and the pipes crack or break when it starts thawing or melting. The results are obvious: water leaking into your kitchen and anywhere else in the home where the pipes have cracked. To prevent this needless and costly flooding there are a few cold weather tips that you can try out for winterizing plumbing in your home.

Running Water

As explained before, it is stagnant water in the pipes that freezes and thaws. Rather than turning off taps when the night is out try letting water run through one or two taps throughout the night. When the water is running the freezing process is nipped in the bud. It does not have to gush out of the tap and flow down the drain, a small trickle is sufficient. To save water you can place the stopper and let the water accumulate in the tub. Running water freezes a lot slower than still water.

Insulation

The insulation you will need is basically anything you wrap around your pipes to stop the cold from penetrating the surface of your pipes. Exposed pipes are those pipes which are normally damaged during winter and these should be the focus of your attention. Wrapping some electrical heating tape –which is plugged into a nearby power source- is a very effective way of ensuring that vulnerable pipes receive constant bolts of heat and warmth at regular intervals, especially when water is about to reach its freezing point.

Keep The Home Cozy

If pipes could think, act and talk as humans they would probably wish they could shield themselves from the cold just as you hide under layers of blankets to shield yourself from the cold. If your home is warm your pipes will be warm as well, albeit not as comfortable as you. Extend your heating system to your piping as this is perhaps the only surefire way to prevent the freezing and cracking of pipes.