How do we make sure our homes are ready for winter?

Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us on today's Ask the expert. I'm Kristen Diaz. I'm David Rankin. It's something we don't see all that often in North Texas. Winter is planning a huge return to the DFW area as soon as this weekend. We could see temperatures dropping into the twenties at night, starting Sunday night and through most of next week. That means we've got a little time to make sure our homes are ready for this cold blast. Now, if you're new to North Texas, winter can act a little

differently here than it does in other parts of the country. On today's Ask the Expert, we're joined by David Carter. He's the director of operations at Berkeys, plumbing, AC, and electrical. He is on the KLD Newsline. David, thank you so much for the time. Thank you for having me today. Let's talk. When the weather gets this cold, how busy do you guys get?

Typically, we get really swamped with a lot of plumbing calls, especially with the temperature drop. A lot of people don't protect their homes from freezes because they're not used to the North Texas temperature dropping this low. We'll get a lot of heat calls. We stay pretty busy. Over the next probably week, I would say probably one of the busiest times of the year for us this summer.

Now, of course, some of these forecasts have temperatures dropping into the 20s, and that is really unusual for North Texas. It's not normal temperatures for wintertime. Usually, we like to stay right around the 30 mark, but when it gets that cold, we always tell people whenever it freezes to protect their pipes, and you'll see people getting creative with insulating their outdoor pipes, sometimes even putting waterburger cups on their spigots outside.

What about the indoor pipes? What can you do to not have bursting pipes and is 20 degree bursting pipe weather typically for us here in North Texas? If you're one of the ones that likes to leave your house when the temperature gets this cold, I would say turn off all the water at your shutoff valve, leave the heat on.

But if you're staying at home, once the temperatures dip below freezing, you know, open your cabinets underneath your sinks, keep your thermostat to a constant temperature during the day and night. And let your fault is stripped from the cold and the hot taps, or, you know, if you don't do that, make sure you run the water through, you know, your hot and cold taps where you go to sleep.

And so it's the overnight where it's the most risky because that's when the temperatures are dropping into the 20s and you don't have that air, the sun warming the pipes that are exposed outside as well. Correct. Let's also talk about other preparations. What do people need to get ready for? You've got a, we've got a couple of days to make sure everything's fine. Yeah. So, you know, as you said earlier,

Mainly cover, you need to insulate your outdoor and your indoor pipes on your un-heated areas. Covering the outdoor spigots with faucet covers of the freeze caps, you know, that's a great thing right there. They're very inexpensive. Make sure you're moved by your water hoses. One of the big ones is to drain and turn off, you know, your sprinkler system. You don't really need it this time of year. Most people don't turn those off, so those pipes freeze.

Make sure you check your swimming pool equipment, you know, drain that. And if you don't have a heated pool equipment, those are some of the big ones right there, especially for the outdoor areas at night when the temperature drops so low.

You know, what about one of the things that we saw when pipes were bursting or people were just not doing what they needed. They were having all these emergency plumbing emergencies in the cold weather was some of these apartments and these high rises seeing pipes burst in their home. Does that go back to what you were saying about the temperature and like dripping your faucets and whatnot in your home to prevent things like if you live in an apartment?

Yes, absolutely. If you can let your water, you know, do a slow drip or just turn it on and let it run for a minute or so before you go to sleep, that would tremendously help. The problem with, you know, the high rises, apartments like that, like you don't have access to shut the water off the entire building.

Yeah, that's an issue. And of course, the other issue is heaters and a lot of people haven't necessarily turned on their heaters yet because we haven't really gotten that cold. What do people need to do to prepare their homes to turn on the heat for a long period of time?

Well, right now, knowing that the weather is going to come in a couple of days, I would go ahead and turn on your heaters now, especially if you have gas heat. It always smells a little funny. That first time you turn it on, it's been about eight months since you used it. So you got one nice day left where you can open your windows, kind of let your house air out. So I would turn on your heater, make sure that everything works correctly right now. If not, then please give us a call. We'll be more than happy to come out there and check them. We're open seven days a week.

David Carter from Berkey's plumbing, HAC, and electrical. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you. Appreciate you having me today.