Prepare Your Home For The Upcoming Freeze With Advice From Home Inspectors

“I’m dreaming of a blue Christmas …” sang no one ever. But that’s what’s in the forecast over the next few days as North Texas braces for below-freezing temps through Christmas, especially Thursday and Friday.

Even without precipitation, these temperatures can pose a threat to your home, so here are a few tips from your friends at Green Scene Home Inspections.

Inside Your House:

1. Set Faucets To Drip. Do I really have to do this? Yes, but only on faucets that have pipes in unconditioned spaces or exposed pipes. So if the pipes are in the crawl space, attic, or running through the walls, keep them on a slow drip.
2. Wrap Exposed Pipes. Open cabinet doors under all the sinks in the house to expose them to the heat indoors. If you have pipes in the aforementioned unconditioned spaces indoors that you can access, wrap them with pipe insulation, or go the homegrown route and use towels, old t-shirts and the like.
3. Inspect/Clean Your Fireplace. You’ll probably be using it anyway, but you’ll really need it if the power goes out, so make sure the flue is clear and get all the excess ash and debris out of there now so you’re ready. Stock up on some wood if possible. If you have a gas-burning fireplace, the answer to the question you’re about to ask is almost always, NO, you cannot burn wood in your gas-burning fireplace. You have to make specific modifications to make it safe, which you probably can’t do over the next couple of days.
4. Caulk and/or Weather Strip Doors and Windows. Do you have a door or window that you always feel a draft when you walk by? You need to seal that bad boy up! As your mama used to say, “We’re not paying to heat the whole neighborhood!” While you’re shut up indoors because it’s too cold to do anything, check the seals on your windows and doors, get some caulk and/or weather stripping, and hooray! You have a project the whole family can enjoy.
5. Check Smoke Alarms and Carbon Monoxide Detectors. In the last couple of big winter storms, local emergency rooms were seeing cases of carbon monoxide poisoning from people sitting in their homes next to outdoor generators or other heating equipment (that are not meant to be used indoors) because they were just trying to stay warm when the power went out. Make sure those detectors are working.
6. Gather Emergency Supplies. Know where your supplies are like extra batteries, flashlights, candles and matches, first aid kits, blankets, and a generator if you have one.

Outside Your House

1. Turn Off Your Sprinkler System. So many people forget to do this and end up not only damaging their system, but freezing sidewalks, driveways, and streets unnecessarily. Flush the system out today if you can, to get any standing water out of there and turn it off.
2. Detach Garden Hoses and Insulate the Faucet. You can use the insulated covers you purchase at a hardware store or go the homegrown route with something like a plastic bag stuffed with cloth and sealed with duct tape, in a pinch.
3. Clean Out Gutters. If you were keeping up with your seasonal home maintenance, you would have already done this, but if your yard is like my yard, there is no keeping up with it. If you don’t have gutter guards like in the above image, check to see if they are full of debris, and more importantly, clogged with water. The water will freeze, and the weight could pull those gutters off your house.
4. Turn Your Pool Equipment On. When the temperature drops below freezing, you need to keep the water moving, but also keep the water level up. Don’t walk away and forget about it, like the sellers in the image above, who left the hose on at their property, and would have an ice rink in the backyard.
5. Know Where Your Emergency Water Turn Off Is and How To Do It. After the freeze, you may have some frozen pipes, and as they begin to thaw, you’ll find out quickly if a pipe has burst. If that’s the case, you’ll want to be prepared to shut off the water as quickly as possible.

Here, Clayton Bailey from Green Scene shows you how to shut off the water from the street:

Our friends at the Dallas Builder’s Association have this great video that shows you how to locate the main water shut-off on the outside of your house, and what to do if your tankless water heater freezes:

You don’t have a lot of time to prepare, but it’s not like you have anything else going on this week, so that’s a relief, right? Good luck, and stay safe and warm!