Seasonal 16/12/2022

Is Your Home Winter Ready?

Due to an earlier-than-usual cold snap, Winter is well and truly here, and it is time to prepare your home for the colder months. We've put together this guide to help you get your home ready for the Winter.

The good news is, with new homes like ours, you’re already in a great place. Our homes come with high levels of insulation and high-performance double glazing to keep the heat in and the cold out, as well as dual-controlled heating to help limit energy use and save your pocket from the rising costs of energy, but here are some things you should do to get your home ready for the cold temperatures.

Avoiding frozen pipes

Your pipes usually have a small amount of water in them, even when the taps aren’t turned on. This water can freeze when the temperature drops. Frozen pipes can leave you without running water, and they’re at risk of bursting and flooding your home – which would be a nightmare situation to have to deal with during the coldest months of the year.

Heating

With the cost of energy soaring, keeping the heating on may feel more daunting than usual but leaving your heating on at 12-15°C keeps the air inside warm to help stop internal pipes from freezing and potentially bursting.

But, there has been much debate around whether it’s best to leave your heating on low all day or turn it on as you need it. This month, the money saving expert Martin Lewis, confirmed to GMB that it’s a myth to leave it on all day. He agreed with the Energy Saving Trust who advise to use your heating when required.

Many Keepmoat homes, have a ‘frost setting’ on their heating control panel that kicks in if the temparture drops below 5°C to stop the water in the pipes from freezing. It would be worth checking if yours has this function.

Insulate pipes

You can insulate pipes in cold areas with foam tubes, known as lagging. This is an inexpensive hack, and you can easily pick these up at your local DIY store and install in seconds. Insulating your pipes correctly can save your hot water pipes from freezing and bursting.

Run your taps

Another option is to run your taps - it's harder for water to freeze if it's running, so turn your taps on and off regularly. Or let your taps trickle so water is always passing, make sure you keep an eye on your usage if you do this.

Isolate your garden tap

In periods of freezing weather, an outdoor tap should always be isolated and the tap itself left open. This will prevent any water in the pipes from freezing and then bursting the pipe when it thaws. You can turn off the water supply to the tap, using the isolator valve. This is usually found inside your home on the wall where plumbing feeds to the outside tap.

It is also possible to buy small thermal insulation jackets that can be slipped over an outside tap and tied in place to prevent the tap from freezing in the winter.

Gutters

Gutters are an important part of your house. Without gutters, excess rainwater can pool and seep through to your home’s foundations, which can be particularly risky in winter as the water could freeze and crack your foundations, causing serious structural damage.

Gutters can often get clogged with fallen leaves and can prevent the water from clearly flowing through them. When winter arrives, the water will freeze, putting extra strain on the gutters causing them to sag or tear off completely.

Gutter cleaning is not a glamourous task and can be quite challenging to do yourself, however there are many professional companies to make sure it’s done properly.

Efficient heating

Radiators

Are your radiators heating to the top? Trapped air can prevent hot water circulating throughout your whole radiator which creates cold spots, usually at top. If this is the case, your radiator is not working to its full potential, and it will take much longer to heat up your home up to the desired temperature.

The process of bleeding the radiators however is quick and easy and can simply be done by a turn of a key! If you need a bit of additional guidance, you can find out how to bleed a radiator here.

Boiler pressure

Give your boiler pressure a check too - it’ll run best at around 1 to 1.5 bar, and you can check this via the gauge on the front of your boiler unit. If your boiler pressure reads less than 1 bar, you might have lost water from the system. This will need to be replaced and is where that filling loop comes in again.

By doing these couple of things you can relax knowing your home will be running as it should and protected from the cold. If you are a Keepmoat customer and have any questions or need some more advice please contact your Customer Care team, their details can be found here on our website.