How cold will it be? “Snow” body knows!

As we all know by now, a hard freeze can place a strain on our water system. Asking residents to conserve water or even drastic measures such as rolling water outages are sometimes necessary to maintain water pressure throughout the system. A few tips to start implementing today are:

• Insulate your exposed pipes. Wrap them with foam rubber or fiberglass sleeves. You can also use rags or newspaper. Be sure to wrap the pipes with at least an inch of those materials, then cover them with plastic wrap or aluminum foil to keep them dry.

• Disconnect and drain outdoor hoses. Detaching the hose allows water to drain from the pipe so an overnight freeze doesn’t burst the faucet or the pipe it’s connected to.

• Insulate pipes or faucets in unheated areas, or areas that are exposed to the cold. It’s best to wrap water pipes in unheated areas (such as the garage or crawl space) before temperatures plummet. You can find pipe wrapping materials at any hardware or building supply store (get there this week because by the weekend those supplies may become scarce).

• Find the master shutoff valve. Usually located where the water line enters your house (or near the water heater or washing machine), the master shutoff valve turns off the water to the entire house. Paint it a bright color and make sure everyone in the household knows where it is in the event of an emergency.

• Let your faucets drip. Letting a small drip of water run from the faucet can help prevent pipes from freezing. This precaution is most often reserved for extended cold spells with temperature staying below freezing for several days, i.e. a “deep freeze”. The common rule of thumb is when temperatures will be at 28 degrees(Fahrenheit), or below for at least 6 hours you may need to drip. We need to be mindful of this because unnecessary dripping can lead to low water pressure and rolling outages in the water district.