Combating Frozen Pipes – Heating Tape
It finally looks like winter is coming to an end here in the Northeast and hopefully your pipes made it out okay. As I’m sure most other companies do, we at Resolve Trenchless receive an influx of calls during those harsh winter months regarding water pipes bursting.
When water is exposed to temperatures below freezing, science indicates that it is going to freeze (imagine that), and being in your pipes makes no exception to this phenomenon.
When water freezes in your pipes, they become fragile and can burst, leaving you without utilities. As you know, one pipe breaking (even to that utility sink in the garage) can affect the entirety of your home plumbing. Insulation can only do so much in keeping exposed pipes warm in harsh cold conditions.
Luckily, there’s a product out there to help known as Heating Tape. Available in multiple variations, heating tape is essentially wrapped around exposed pipes and plugged into an outlet. While plugged in, the tape keeps the pipes warm enough to prevent water inside from freezing.
Heating tape is fairly inexpensive to purchase. Some more complex variations are even thermostat regulated, and will only turn on when the temperature in that area drops below a predetermined number.
Heating tape does require use of your electricity (thus hiking up the electric bill a little), but the cost is minimal at most (think in the realm of $100-ish over the few months needed).
While heating tape is certainly a quick fix and most likely not a permanent answer to some exposed water piping, it can certainly prevent some pipes from bursting in the mean time and at an affordable price.
Speaking of affordable pricing, if you are one of the unfortunate homeowners bothered by bursting pipes, definitely give us a call at Resolve Trenchless at 888-973-7658, or 215-441-5544 local.