A frozen outdoor faucet can cause serious water damage to your home and property.
How to prevent outside water faucet from freezing.
Exterior faucets can cause plenty of problems for your plumbing in the winter.
Water expands as it freezes so if water is inside your pipes when the temperature drops below freezing the ice can grow too large and burst the.
Your outdoor pipes and faucets are vulnerable to freezing and bursting in the wintertime due to an increase in water pressure.
Don t forget to shut off the water supply before you get started.
The surest way to prevent your outside faucet from freezing is to replace your exterior faucet with a frost proof sill cock.
This can be done by shutting off an interior shut off valve to the water line leading to the spigot then opening the spigot and leave it open for a few hours until the water inside the pipe drains out.
Outside detach all of your garden hoses and wrap your outside spigots in insulation or heat tape.
Then open each outside faucet completely and let it drain.
If you can find ways to allow some trinkle of water to pass through the faucet at night then it may help protect the pipes from freezing to a certain extent.
Why do i need to winterize my outdoor faucets.
Freezing and bursting often results in expensive water damage and repair costs for your home.
Most homeowners who live in cold climates know it s important to winterize the outside faucets to prevent them from freezing which can destroy the faucet or lead to a burst pipe.
Your faucet may look a little different from the one we show but the basic steps will be the same even if you have an anti siphon faucet see photo above.
These faucets feature remote control of the water supply faucet valve located inside the home which then allows water to flow to the exterior faucet spout.
To do this you ll need to locate the valve that controls water flow to your outside faucets which is usually located in the basement and switch it off.
Installing a frost proof faucet.
When the cold weather moves in water in faucets or in attached hoses can freeze and expand which could lead to.
Photos 1 3 show how it s done.
Luckily it is easy to prevent a frozen faucet if you follow these tips.
Use of running water to prevent freezing.
Why cover your faucets.
In fact you can fix most outdoor faucets that aren t freeze proof the same way.
The easiest and cheapest way to prevent freezing in your pipes is to drain the lines prior to the first freeze each winter.
Similarly you can also use a blow dryer to defrost the frozen pipes as it is a preferable option to avoid an open flame by using any other devices.
If you have an outdoor faucet that is not freeze proof the best way to do this is to shut off that line if possible and drain the water from it.
Use this guide to prevent frozen burst pipes and the costly damage that follows.
The faucet head is attached.
