TULSA, Okla. — As the 2 News weather team is forecasting, those frigid temperatures mean you need to act right now. Homeowners and renters, this is the time to protect your home before you go to bed tonight.
To protect homes, there are some simple things you should do. Starting inside the house, you will want to protect your pipes from freezing.
To prevent this, you should turn your faucets on, leaving them trickling. Then going from top to bottom, you want to at least crack, if not fully open, cabinets under sinks to let the hot air circulate in there, keeping the pipes warm. This is very important to avoid pipes from freezing or even breaking, but if you do have one of those happen, here’s what you should do.
“If they have a pipe freeze, gently warm it up, leave the faucet open, open up the areas underneath, try to keep the area circulating through to thaw it out," Joseph Kralicek, Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency, said. "If you have a pipe break, you need to shut off the water to that value. It may involve needing to shut off the entire water to your household if it's a large enough pipe, and you need to call a plumber.”
It’s also suggested that you keep your thermostats above 65 degrees.
“Because really, even if you have a crawl space foundation, if you keep your house warm, it's going to keep the air down underneath your house, it may get very cold, but as long as you keep that above freezing, keep that water moving through, the water should keep going and not freeze in the pipes,” Kralicek said.
Now you aren’t done yet. There are a few more things you should do. Outside the home, disconnect hoses, cover up hose bibs, and clean out gutters, as leaves can set you up for an ice dam.
These things could save people from a headache and expensive repairs. State Farm Insurance says this year alone, burst pipes and ice dams cost $181 million in claims. That’s about $20,000 per claim on average.
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