How to Winterize Your Home

With the cold weather settling in, we wanted to give you some handy homeowner tips regarding how to winterize your home. Honestly, many lists give you good information, but most tend to be too extensive and too intimidating. This list is practical and helps you do the most critical things to mitigate pipes from bursting. Prolonged exposure to cold and wind causes frozen pipes. Protect against freeze breaks in your plumbing system by taking the stated measures below. These are precautionary measures. They help but in no way guarantee frozen pipes won't occur.

Take these simple steps:

• Disconnect and drain exterior water hoses before freezing weather. Failure to do this allows a direct path for ice to freeze inside the home, causing stressed pipes to fail.
• Install an insulated hose bib cover before the winter months. Get these at any local Home Depot. Host bib covers are a simple and inexpensive way to insulate vulnerabilities around the home.
• During periods of freezing temperatures, leave faucets inside the house dripping slowly and open cabinets on outside walls to allow the heat to reach the wall.
• During periods of prolonged absence, shut off the water supply at the valve box or water meter, drain water from lines in the house by opening the outside hose bib until the water has drained, and reinstall the insulation around the bib.

Please take the freezing weather seriously and help protect the plumbing system during periods of prolonged cold. Ohio winters are rough, and a small dose of proactive home readiness goes a long way. Always remember, The Gutter Boys are here for any gutter need you have. Whether it be seamless gutters, gutter guards, gutter cleaning or repair, or window cleaning, we got you covered. Give us a call at 440-454-7040 for Cleveland or 614-641-4030 for Columbus.