12/18/2022
Here in North Texas we're expecting our first hard freeze this winter beginning Thursday and lasting until Christmas Day. Hopefully, there will not be widespread power outages like we experienced last year. As a home inspector with over ten years experience inspecting homes in this area, I would like to encourage everyone affected to stay safe and to complete a few easy tasks to help protect their homes from freeze damage.
First, it is not too early to turn your sprinkler system off. Turn it off and don't turn it back on until there have been a least forty eight hours above freezing, likely to be Tuesday, December 27 or later. This gives the sprinklers heads at ground level sufficient time to thaw out.
Obviously you want to set your thermostats to a normal heat setting and if you have programmable thermostats, check your programming to make sure that it's set to run all day. This is especially important for real estate agents that have vacant houses listed. It would be prudent make sure that someone checks those houses every day until it is warmer to verify that other people have not changed the heat settings. It is prudent to open the cabinet doors under sinks and open the doors to all bathrooms.
Hopefully, all exposed pipes and faucets are insulated, especially outside faucets that project high off the ground. All hoses should be removed from exterior faucets. Set enough faucets to drip slightly to create slight water movement in all the supply piping. It doesn't have to be every faucet, but it needs to be enough to affect the entire water supply system. If you set the exterior hose faucets to drip slightly that may be enough for the house depending where your bathrooms and kitchen are located. If you have a bathroom or kitchen that is far away from where the outside faucets are located, you may need to set a fixture in those rooms to drip as well. Bathrooms and kitchens adjacent to an exterior wall or on the ground floor on a home with a pier and beam foundation are more susceptible to freeze damage than interior or upstairs rooms. A slight drip is sufficient to protect most fixtures from freezing, but sometimes the flow of water drops off after a minute or two. It is smart to set all the fixtures and faucets then make the circuit again to verify that they are still dripping. To conserve water, you should turn the water back off when the temperature rises above freezing, which is likely to be Sunday morning Christmas Day in our area.
If you have an outdoor pool, the filter pump should be set to run throughout the hard freeze. Again, agents with vacant homes listed, should make sure someone is taking care of this. If you have a system with freeze protection, it should do this automatically. If not, this will need to be done manually. On pool controls that have manual timers (the ones with a round dial like a clock face), you may have to take off the contacts to prevent the timer from turning the pump off at a certain time. If there is a power outage there are a few things that can be done to help prevent or reduce damage to the pool, pool plumbing, and equipment. For a short outage you may not need to do anything. For longer outages where the water is subject to freezing, it is recommended to turn off the power to the pool and to take off the cover of the filter pump. This lets some of the water to drain out of some of the plumbing pipes and gives ice a little more room to expand if it freezes. If you have gas service, you can get a large bucket of warm water and add it to the pump every few hours. Gravity and diffusion will push warm water through the pump and most of the pipes and keep it from freezing. Cover all the exposed equipment and pipes with blankets and tarpaulins helps protect them also. Remember that when the power service is restored or it is warmer, you have to fill the pump reservoir with water to prime it and reinstall the lid before you turn the power to the pool equipment back on.
Finally, when this cold snap is past, it is vital to visually inspect all plumbing lines to make sure nothing was damaged especially in attics and crawlspaces. It is prudent to do this at least a couple times on separate days. Frozen pipes may take a couple of days to thaw out and leaks sometimes take time to show themselves. A quick look at your water meter flow dial is another good way to see if you have a problem. You should not detect any water flow at the meter if all fixtures are turned off. If you do see movement at the meter and you can’t find the cause, you should turn off the water to the house and call a licensed plumber to troubleshoot the problem. Today before the freeze is a good day to see if you need a special tool to open your water meter and to verify that you know where to turn off the water to the house. And don’t forget to turn off the sprinkler system. Good luck and happy holidays!
