5 Tips for Creating Indoor Pools from Frozen Pipes

During the winter months and dropping temperatures, homeowners often discover that there are easier ways to install an indoor swimming pool in their house. Of course, when the pool is directly related to a frozen pipe, even the exuberance of the children is difficult to ease the feelings of holiday stress that immediately follow the discovery of said pool. However, if you find yourself preferring an indoor swimming pool to preventing frozen water pipe damage, then the following steps are excellent ways to ensure large quantities of water find their way into your home:

Set your house temperature below 55 degrees.

This makes sure that water in pipes close to external walls doesn’t stand a chance in staying liquid.

Don’t bother setting your oil on automatic delivery.

A substantial number of frozen pipe water damages we restore are the result of no heating fuel in homes vacant due to vacation or seasonal use. Just keep the tank full!

Don’t bother getting your furnace maintained.

Gas, propane and oil furnaces must be regularly inspected and verified to be in good working order. The litany of potential failures are too many to list here, but it’s well worth the $150 or so each year to get a pro to keep your furnace running strong.

The exposed pipes near exterior walls are no big deal.

Careful inspection of your plumbing is essential to preventing frozen pipes. People are often surprised by how many pipes are not properly insulated near exterior walls. Local hardware stores will offer suitable insulating materials to offer some additional protection.

When the pipes are frozen, break out the flamethrower to thaw them out.

First of all, flamethrowers are awesome and your neighbors will be insanely jealous that you have discovered a legitimate civilian use for one of these puppies. Secondly, using any hot-flame device will cause temperature shock to the piping and likely cause it to rupture, producing an awesome flow of water!

Obviously, this is written in a way to encourage you to NOT take these important steps in neglecting your frozen pipes! Using common sense preventive measures will usually keep you well protected from frozen pipe water damage. However, we’ve seen many disasters happen to occur in spite of well executed preventive measures.