01/12/2024
-Freeze protection: Wrap all outside pipes. Disconnect and drain attached garden hoses. Leave water trickling on your faucets and hose bibs, especially those on exterior walls. Check your attic for uninsulated pipes. Locate your water main shutoff to your house and also locate your water meter shutoff as a backup in case of emergency. Your house air heating unit should help keep the pipes in your walls warm to help prevent freezing. If you lose power, then the urgency and chances of frozen pipes increase dramatically and you should consider additional steps to prevent damages like draining your house (see below).
-PEX pipes won't freeze, those lines are fine. It's anything PVC, CPVC, brass, copper, or galvanized that you need to worry about. Even if you have PEX, a lot of times your water main coming into your house may become frozen and burst. We still recommend prevention even with PEX water lines.
-Things to remember before draining your house water lines: If you plan on turning your water main off and draining your house, remember that the underground water line coming into your main valve will still be pressurized and full of water which could still cause your water main valve to burst. Turning off your water meter and loosening the water meter ni**le is one way to help relieve the underground water line holding pressure to your main shutoff (contact your city for further information before doing this).
Additionally, if you have an electric water heater, you need to turn the power off to it before draining your house to prevent dry fire. You should also turn the gas off to your gas water heater if you drain your house down. Drain your tankless water heaters (see below). When you turn water back on to your house after a freeze, there is still a chance that a water line inside the house was holding water and broke. You should slowly turn the water on and have others inside the house monitoring for any potential broken water lines inside the house. Monitor your water meter (see pic) to make sure the dials don't move.
-If you have a galvanized water system, keep in mind that if you drain your house and turn water back on you will be breaking up a lot of sediment inside the water lines and the breakoff may clog your faucets and fixtures when water is turned back on. It is pretty hard to prevent this from happening but slowly draining lines and slowly turning water back on with hose bibs open will help minimize the damage. Galvanized systems are out of code to current day systems and are a disaster waiting to happen. Definitely consider re-piping your home to PEX pipe immediately.
-Tankless water heaters will freeze if you lose power. Most tankless water heaters have built-in freeze prevention but there is a catch: it must maintain electricity to work. Tankless water heaters have copper insides and need to be individually turned off at the water heater supply and drained out (they have a drain port, see pic). You should also turn the gas off to it if you are draining it.
-Swimming pools: Contact your pool company for further advice.
-Turn off and drain your irrigation system: Turning off the water is not enough, most backflow preventers also have a drain port (see pic) and the water needs to be drained out of the brass backflow preventer even when the water is turned off.
