Every winter my phone rings the morning after the first hard freeze. It’s usually a burst pipe, a furnace that won’t start, or water coming through a ceiling. Almost every one of those calls could have been a 15-minute job the week before.
1. Unhook the hoses and cover the outdoor faucets
A hose left on the faucet traps water in the pipe, and that water freezes and splits the line inside your wall. You won’t see the damage until spring when you turn the faucet on.
Take every hose off, drain it, and put a foam faucet cover on each outdoor spigot. Covers cost a few dollars at any hardware store. If your house has an inside shut-off valve for the outdoor faucets, close it and open the outside faucet to let it drain.
2. Know where your main water shut-off is
If a pipe does burst, every minute counts. Find your main shut-off now, while it’s dry and daylight. Make sure it turns. Show everyone in the house where it is.
Some homes can only be shut off at the water meter out by the street. If that’s your house, you need a water key, a long metal tool that turns the valve at the meter. If you don’t have one, pick one up at any hardware store. If you already own one, keep it where you can grab it fast.
For rentals, put the location in writing for your tenant. A tenant who can shut off the water in two minutes saves you thousands.
3. Change the furnace filter and test the heat
Turn the heat on now, before you need it. A burning-dust smell for the first few minutes is normal. A furnace that won’t light, short-cycles, or smells like gas is not. Call a pro.
Put in a fresh filter, and write the date on it. If the furnace hasn’t been serviced in a couple of years, book it now. Service calls are slower to get once the cold arrives.
4. Clean the gutters
Oklahoma oaks and elms drop their leaves right before our first freezes. Clogged gutters hold water, the water freezes, and ice backs up under the shingles. Clear them after most of the leaves are down, and make sure the downspouts carry water away from the foundation.
5. Seal the drafts and protect pipes on outside walls
Hold your hand near the bottom of each exterior door and around the windows on a windy day. Feel air? Add a door sweep or weather stripping.
Pipes in a garage, crawl space, or on an outside wall freeze first. Wrap them with foam pipe insulation. On the coldest nights, open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls and let a faucet drip.
If you own a rental
Send your tenants a short reminder before the first freeze: unhook hoses, leave the heat on (set no lower than 55 when they travel), and call right away if they see a leak. A tenant who calls early saves you a much bigger repair.
If we manage your property, you can skip this one. We send the freeze warnings to your tenants for you.
If the freeze list is one more thing on a long list of rental headaches, that’s the conversation I have with owners every week. Some decide to keep the property and let us manage it. Some decide it’s time to sell. Either answer is fine. The wrong move is staying stuck.
Call or text me at 405-409-7989. We’ll talk through your property and what makes sense for you.
Karyn Seabrooke, Key Realty and Property Management, Oklahoma City