I have a neighbor who had the unfortunate circumstance of leaving her garage door open overnight and the next day she called in a panic stating that she thinks her pipes are frozen and do I know what she should do. My best advice was to call a plumber immediately. I watched over the next 2 weeks how a plumber came and went, and a clean up crew comes and goes frequently so not only did her pipes freeze but they also burst and created some clean-up and potential damage. Ugh! How do we prevent this with temperatures down in the single digits? I started looking for advice and I'm sharing the things you can do to ensure that your pipes stay running in the wintertime:
1) Make sure your garage door is closed. Many of the main pipes leading into the home are exposed in the garage and if you leave the garage door open -- it could lead to those pipes freezing. Such was the case my neighbor found.
2) If you are truly worried about pipes freezing, check under your home to see how insulated it is. Before I saw what my poor neighbor went through, I was in fine with never venturing under my house in the crawlspace. Too many potential creepy crawlies -- LOL! Once this catastrophe happened to my neighbor, I cracked open the access and crawled down inside to check it out for myself. What I found is that it is actually fairly clean down there, and at a nicely ambient temperature to the inside of my home due to the nice insulation that someone put in years ago around the exterior. If you find your crawl space is too cold -- it might be time to explore insulating your pipes as well as creating better insulation around the sides of your home leading to the crawl space. If pipes traveling in exterior walls have frozen in the past (tell-tale signs include water damage, mold, and moisture build-up), it’s probably because of inadequate or improperly installed insulation. It might well be worth the couple hundred dollars it costs to open up the wall and beef up the insulation.
3) A frozen garden hose can cause more damage than a busted hose; it can actually burst an interior pipe. When the water in the hose freezes, it expands, increasing pressure throughout the whole plumbing system. As part of your regular seasonal maintenance, Do a double-check and make sure all your garden hoses are disconnected, drained, and stored, preferrably before the first hard freeze.
4) For folks leaving their houses for an extended period of time in winter, additional preventative measures must be taken to adequately protect the home from frozen pipes. Make sure the furnace is set no lower than 55 degrees. Shut off the main water supply and drain the system by opening all faucets and flushing the toilets.
5) if you are still worried and want to take some action for when you know temperatures dip to subzero, you can also Open kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors to allow warmer air to circulate around the plumbing. Be sure to move any harmful cleaners and household chemicals up out of the reach of children. When the weather is very cold outside, let the cold water drip from the faucet served by any exposed pipes. Running water through the pipe - even at a trickle - helps prevent pipes from freezing.
In conclusion, let me add that I hope your pipes run this winter without problem because it can be an expensive mess (according to what my neighbor has relayed) if there are any problems.