Homeowner on TikTok shares how to protect pipes during winter
With the coldest part of the calendar approaching, Kyshawn Lane (@weeklyhomecheck) shared a video on how to protect your pipes from the winter weather.
Lane has a weekly home-maintenance series in which he gives out tips that also includes posts on how to prepare certain appliances — such as an outdoor air-conditioning unit — for winter.
“Did you know that if you don’t drain your spigots for winter, you risk the possibility of bursting your pipes?” Lane says in a post dated Oct. 17.
In the video, Lane says to first disconnect the hose and then turn off the water valve connected to that spigot. After that, he instructs viewers to turn on the spigot so all the excess water is drained out of the pipes. Once all the water is gone, the final step is to put a cover on the spigot for extra protection.
John Eccles, operations manager at Nick’s Plumbing, a company in Houston, clarified how crucial this step is to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting.
“Anytime you’re going to face extended freezing temps, the potential for busted pipes is there,” Eccles told In The Know. “Draining the system is the only surefire way [to prevent it].”
Eccles also said that running water can be helpful, but that does have its downside.
“If you don’t want to drain them completely, running and trickling water — which obviously it’s wasteful, so it’s problematic to some people — but it does work,” Eccles said. “It’s always been a wise tale that moving water doesn’t freeze, and that’s true. But if it’s not moving fast enough, then it can if the freezing temperatures are extreme enough.”
Eccles acknowledged that extreme freezing conditions would have to last beyond three days before he considered this a necessary course of action — which may be the case this year.
The Farmers’ Almanac, which has published seasonal forecasts for nearly two centuries, recently predicted that several states in the southern region of the United States would have an “unreasonably cold, stormy” 2023-2024 winter.
Predictions like this were found to be over 50% accurate by a University of Illinois study in 2010. That said, parts of the South also experienced freezing temperatures last winter — causing electric outages, days without heat and even several deaths.
Another way homeowners can prepare their house for cold temperatures is by plastic-wrapping windows. By applying and then blow-drying plastic wrap on the windows, residents can slow down drafts of cold air through the window cracks.
Kayla Hahn, who is spending her second winter in Wisconsin, decided to document her first-time wrapping her windows with a kit she bought from Amazon.
“I grew up in New Hampshire we did the same as a kid with plastic wrap,” commented @huskymama1966.
With the potential of a winter with freezing temperatures affecting homes around the country, there are several ways TikTokers are winterizing their homes.
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