Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
When the outside temperatures are well below freezing, and you have no access to an adequate
source of heat, the only safe course of action is to drain the pipes and plumbing fixtures in your
home. If you must vacate your home in extremely cold weather, being able to drain your
plumbing is the only safe way to ensure that subfreezing temperatures will not ruin your
plumbing, and possibly flood your home when it thaws out. The plumbing in your home may
be quite different from what is described here, so you should familiarize yourself with your
own home's plumbing. You may need to contact a local plumber to help you understand how
best to drain your pipes in the event of an extended power blackout during a period of ex-
tremely cold weather. A plumber may be required for installing modifications to your home's
plumbing so it may be easily drained when necessary to protect your home from freeze dam-
age.
The following general guidelines should give you a decent start (see
fig. 15-1
):
1. Locate your home's main water shut-off valve and turn the water off.
2. Crack all the faucets in your home, both hot and cold. For single-handle control valves, where the
hot and cold mixture are controlled with a single handle rather than a separate hot and cold faucet,
move the control to a central position where both the hot and cold would be on at the same time
(a “warm” setting). Cracking each faucet allows air to bleed into the system through the faucets
to replace the water draining out of the lowest valve(s).
3. Crack all external hose bib faucets.
4. Turn off the gas or electricity supply to your hot-water heater.
5. Drain your hot-water heater by attaching a hose to the hose bib faucet near the base of your hot-
water heater. Make sure that hot-water faucets in the home are open while draining the hot-water
tank!
6. Unhook your clothes-washer hoses and drain the water out of them into a bucket. You may need
to open the back of your washer and pull the hoses off the water pump and the solenoid valves to
allow those parts to drain. Simply running your washer for a few minutes will not pump the water
out of its internal components.
7. Flush your toilets to get almost all the water out of the toilet tanks. Using a sponge or rag, remove
most of the water from the toilet bowl itself.
8. Pour about a cup of nontoxic RV-type antifreeze (pink antifreeze available in gallon jugs at most
hardware stores) into all of the sink drains and toilet bowls (after they have been flushed) to
freeze-protect the traps of your sinks and toilets. You should not use green automotive antifreeze
forthistask,sinceitistoxic.Alternately,youcanusearagorspongetoremoveallthewaterfrom
your toilet-bowl traps, and unhook sink traps from below to drain the water out of them.
Caution:
Once the water is removed from your sink and toilet traps, there is nothing left inside the traps to
block smelly sewer gas from entering your home through the sink and toilet drain lines!
