MEMPHIS, Tennessee — As winter weather approaches in the Mid-South, ABC24's Shiela Whaley spoke with Bill McMullin, owner of McMullin Plumbing and Fabrication, on how to protect your pipes to save some money.
“Some things are just as simple as leaving your faucets slowly streaming. Not a small drip. We want a small stream... both hot and cold," he said. “A little bit of water wasted is a very, very small amount of money compared to what it’s going to cost to have a contractor come out and fix broken pipes, fix the sheet rock, fix the floor, have an insurance claim. So, let’s just keep those faucets lightly streaming, not running, not dripping, just a very, very small stream.”
In your bathrooms and kitchens, especially on fixtures that are placed on an exterior wall, he said to leave the cabinet doors open.
"The heat from the house can get up underneath there to help protect those pipes in the wall," he said.
For large appliances, he said washers and dryers, especially those on an exterior wall, should be in a space that is well heated.
“If you want to pull it out off the wall a couple inches to make sure that the heat can circulate, or if you have a heat lamp or even a small space heater - if you keep this space well heated, that will help protect those pipes.”
If you have pipes up in the attic, those really need to be wrapped with some insulation, according to McMullin.
"If you have some extra pool noodles laying around, that’s fine to wrap them with those. Towels, blankets, that’s OK. It’s not going to hurt. Just make sure that they’re protected from the weather.”
For outside faucets, wrap an old T-shirt or socks around it, throw a Ziploc bag over it and tape it up.
McMullin said a lot of people forget about their crawl space vents. If you don’t have a manual closing operation on the vent, then you need to block it off with some cardboard.
"Shove it in a plastic bag and tape it. You want to block that cold breeze from getting up underneath the house," he said.