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Frozen Pipes

Avoid the misery of frozen pipes

You'll save yourself hours of hassle from insurance claims as well as the misery of mopping up!

• Find your mains water stop valve and make sure you can turn it off and on. It will usually be somewhere on the ground floor of your home.
   
• Repair any dripping taps
   
• Look in the loft space to see whether it contains any water pipes and tanks (most houses do).
   
• Examine the condition of the insulation on pipes and tanks in the loft. - Is it intact? How thick is it? If it is damaged, or too thin, you should improve or replace it.
   
• All pipes and tanks in the loft space, or anywhere else which may be liable to freezing need to be lagged.
   
• The thicker the lagging the better, especially if you live in a particularly cold part of the country, or have a well-insulated loft floor. (This can stop warm air rising from the rest of the house to heat pipes and tanks in the loft).
   
• If you intend to leave your house unoccupied for more than a few hours during the cold weather, the pipe lagging should be at least 50mm in diameter - preferably 75mm. This is thicker than the insulation material stocked in many DIY stores, but is usually available from plumbers' merchants.
   
• Use preformed pipe insulation on all pipe runs.
   
• Wrap bends or hard-to-get-at pipes with securely fixed strips of insulation material.

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