Should You insulate Your Water Pipes?

Canadian winters bring cold temperatures. Having your water pipes freeze or burst is a major inconvenience. It can also be an expensive frustration for home and cottage owners, easily causing property damage that can run into the thousands to fix.

It’s pretty cost-effective to insulate your water pipes, so let’s look at the benefits of doing so over the long run.

Some like it hot

Insulating your water pipes will help keep your hot water hot. It helps save water too as you have less temperature drop, loss and wait to use your hot water when you need it, be it for a shower, laundry or the dishwasher.

Don’t sweat it

But what about your cold water pipes? No need to worry about heat loss there, you are thinking. Keeping your cold water pipes insulated prevents sweating – as happens when the water pipe is colder than the air around it and moisture condenses on the pipes, causing drips and staining to ceilings, walls and floors.

How and where to insulate

Two most common ways are foam sleeves and pipe wrap. Foam sleeves are especially convenient for long straight runs of pipe, so a lot of pipes, err ground can be covered quickly. Wrap can be made of several types of material, bubble-film, rubber, cotton or fiberglass backed. These are wrapped in an overlapping fashion to complete the task. Ideal for smaller lengths or pipes with a lot of bends to the installation. Ideally, you want to insulate all of the pipe runs, but areas in or near interior walls, garage, basement, crawl spaces are particularly susceptible to freezing is a great place to start the project at.

Need help getting your pipes insulated? Contact us today: info@pipemasters.ca or (289) 404-9063. Our experienced team will protect your plumbing against Mother Nature’s frigid chill this winter and save you money too! PipeMasters is part of Oakridge Plumbing Ontario Ltd. and serves the East GTA, Durham Region, North to Lindsay & Peterborough, out to Cobourg and all points in between. All Rights Reserved.