Every winter we receive hundreds of emails about broken or frozen pipes. To help you prevent some of these problems within your own plumbing we have provided a few home winterizing tips to assist you in winterizing your home. Although no plumber can give you a clear guarantee against frozen or broken pipes, it is still useful and even important that you take some preventive winterizing steps.

If you are not comfortable with DIY plumbing repairs, then you may prefer to contact a registered master plumber to do the work for you instead.

The main idea behind home winterization is the removal of most of the water which can freeze from within the pipelines and other areas of your plumbing.

Winterize Your Home
Turn off the heat source to the furnace and water heater.
If the water heater is electric or oil, turn off the power at the switch.
If your water heater runs on gas, you must turn off the gas valve. In most cases, you can turn off the furnace by switching off the electrical power supply.
Close the main water valve or supply to your home. This valve is usually located in the basement or laundry room of your home.
When your main valve has been turned off, open (or turn on) all indoor faucets first. (kitchen sink, bathroom sinks, tubs, showers and laundry room basin).
Secondly turn on all outside faucets, draining all water from the pipelines within, and outside of your home.
Drain the water heater.
Wrap "exposed" pipes, and pipes that need to have water inside with insulation materials.
Empty your Water Heater
Connect a hose to the drain at the bottom of the heater and allow the water to run into the floor drain.
If you do not have a floor drain, extend the hose to the outside of the house, or establish a line to a nearby laundry tub to remove the drained water from the heater.
Once the heater has been drained, be sure you close the valve at the base of the heater. (After all the pipes are drained, they should be protected.)
Winterizing Toilets
Flush the toilets with the water supply to the toilet turned off. (This will drain the water from the tank.)
Sponge out the remaining water inside the tank.
Then add a dilution of propyleneglycol anti-freeze to the toilet bowl.
Pour the non-toxic solution into all the drains in your home.
The reason to keep the water in the toilet bowl is to make sure the trap is sealed to keep sewer gas from entering your home through the drainways. The traps in other basins, kitchen sinks, tubs/showers and laundry tubs should also be protected with anti-freeze.

Hot Water Heating Systems
If your home has a hot water heating system (with baseboard or conventional radiators), this system must be drained when you are winterizing your home.



Draining the Heating Systems
Turn off the electrical power source and water supply. If you have a natural gas powered system, the gas valve and pilot must be turned off.
Open the drain valve on the bottom of the furnace.
Drain the expansion