Prepare Your Home for an Ohio Winter: Plumbing & HVAC Maintenance Tips

Your winter should be full of snowmen, hot chocolate and warm family get-togethers; not frozen, burst pipes and disgruntled furnaces. Here are some things you can do to prepare your home for a safe, comfortable, and stress-free winter season.

1. Remove outdoor hoses from spigots. Drain and store indoors. If left outside, the hose may freeze and expand, freezing the connecting pipes as well.

2. Inspect your pipes for leaks – better to have them fixed now than to have a much bigger problem on your hands in the middle of winter.

3. Wrap pipes in unheated areas of your home. There are many methods for wrapping – some suggest heat tape, others suggest insulation or foam.

4. Schedule furnace service and cleaning. If your home is without heat for too long, you could have a serious problem, so it’d be wise to give your furnace a good tune-up before the cold sets in. Have a professional ensure that the equipment is ready to take on a full Ohio winter season. Similarly, if you are leaving for a ski trip or escaping to the warm southern sun, be sure to keep your home warm or plan to have someone check in every few days. The winter temperatures can easily cause water inside your home to freeze and your pipes to burst. Without anyone around to catch the burst, the result could be a disastrous flood.

5. Schedule sump pump maintenance. It’s important that your home’s sump pump pit is clean and prepared to take on water from slushy winter days and rapid spring thaws.

Don’t forget, Kobella has both plumbing and HVAC preventive maintenance programs. We can help you shorten this list significantly with a full inspection of your home’s plumbing or heating systems.