How to Cover Outdoor Faucets for Winter?
In colder climates, frost and freezing temperatures can badly destroy your water pipes and outdoor faucets. While these faucets are available in stylish designs, they look great in summer and spring. But when you don’t follow proper precautions, these outdoor faucets cannot offer seamless performance and hence cause a lot of problems.
If you want to minimize the damage, the best way is to cover your outdoor kitchen faucets so you can protect them from frosty temperatures because when the season is cold, water can expand and pipes can rupture badly. And when pipes are burst, you have to spend tons of money fixing the damage done to walls, ceilings, and floors.
Therefore, it makes great sense to cover the outdoor faucets and consider every preventive measure. Covering the outdoor faucet is relatively easy, as you can purchase insulated covers that fit over the spigots.
When you use outdoor faucet covers, they will simply help prevent them from damage and rupturing. Let’s find out how this outdoor faucet covers work and what are the risks of exposing them to cold freezing temperatures.
Risks of Leaving Your Outdoor Faucets Exposed in Cold:
When it comes to winterizing your home, you often forget outdoor faucets. As a result, it leads to serious damages and expensive repairs.
Here are some risks of leaving these faucets exposed in cold:
Frozen Pipes:
As we all know that outdoor faucets are not properly insulated, due to which cold air can easily seep into the walls. When you leave your outdoor faucets exposed, water freezes in the pipes with the external walls.
If you find your pipes are freezing, it’s best to turn off your water supply and immediately contact a professional plumber. Turn on your faucet and check if the water is frozen. If water is dripping after turning on the faucet, it means pipes are partially frozen. In that case, you can easily thaw them with a dryer.
Burst Pipes:
Water pipes can rupture or burst when extreme pressure starts to build within them. However, the pipes do not burst until they reach a certain point of freezing. When you protect the outdoor faucets, it results in complete protection of the pipes existing in your home.
Because if there is a broken pipe in your home, it will flood the house with water. It results in hundreds of dollars of damage, as well as ruins the overall interior of your home. And unfortunately, your living situations become unbearable.
If your pipes are already damaged and burst, make sure you turn off the water and immediately call your plumber. In worst situations, it’s better to relocate to a friend or a relative so you could save yourself from other damages.
Invest in Outdoor Faucet Covers:
If you want to protect yourself and your property, it’s recommended to invest in outdoor faucet covers. You can choose from soft covers as well as hardcovers.
Hard Faucet Covers:
Hard faucet covers are the best choice when it comes to covering outdoor faucets. These covers are made of Styrofoam that has a solid plastic exterior.
Their installation is very quick and simple. These covers also offer extreme protection for all kinds of outdoor faucets. The best part is they are affordable for every budget. You can get them from as low as $2- $10 depending on their size and overall strength.
There is only one problem with these covers. They are quite bulky in size. Storing them during Spring and Summer in a safe place is a lot of pain. Especially if you don’t have enough space in your garage. Another thing is, these covers are not flexible, so you cannot use them in any tight space or some difficult-to-reach areas.
Soft Faucet Covers:
Soft covers are created with soft polyester, but they feature very thick insulation that is appropriate for your outdoor faucets. They also have long ties that can secure the faucet cover. Plus, they are quite easy to install. Soft faucet covers are usually available between $5-$7. You can buy each cover in sets and save them as a bundle.
Unlike traditional hardcovers available in the market, these soft covers are flexible, and you can easily store them anywhere. They even allow you to reach hard-to-reach spaces. You can store them in your drawer, kitchen cabinets, or even in the garage as they do not take much space.
Make sure you look for these features when shopping for faucet covers:
- They must have long ties as they offer more security
- They should be made of weatherproof polyester or vinyl so they can protect against rain and snow.
- The material should be flexible and soft so you can use them in tight or hard to reach areas
- They should be properly insulated to keep the faucet warm
DIY Faucet Covers:
In case, the weather is already freezing and getting harsh with each passing day and you couldn’t buy a hard or soft cover for your outdoor faucet, then it’s recommended to get your DIY cover that protects from cold temperature.
The easy DIY cover just needs three materials such as your old or useless t-shirt, plastic bags, and duct tape.
But how can you use them? Have a look below to ensure maximum protection of your faucet.
- Unscrew the hoses or different connections from the outdoor faucet.
- Now wrap it with different layers of plastic bags or t-shirts and try to make it as warm as possible.
- Cover the fabric insulation with multiple plastic bags.
- You can keep the bags secure with duct tape and wrap them several times around.
When the temperature dips below freezing point and is expected to be there for the next couple of days, make sure you drip the indoor faucets as well and leave all the cabinet doors fully opened in your bathroom and kitchen. Because running water can always prevent faucets and pipes from freezing. When you will leave the doors open, it will allow warm air to enter the internal pipes and also prevent freezing.
How Do These Faucet Covers Work?
Faucet covers are usually available in two different shapes. You can either find them square or dome-shaped shells that are made of solid thermal foam as well as feature flexible gaskets that can easily fit into your outdoor faucets. Some covers are just like flexible bags, and they are created with soft fabric which is properly insulated.
It’s important to install them properly so that they can stick tightly to the base of your faucet. You can choose from any style, as the covers offer reliable insurance against spigots damaged because of freezing.
Faucet covers can trap heat that radiates naturally through the internal pipes of the external spigot. This insulated cover is responsible to prevent the radiated heat from escaping. Hence it prevents the entry of water into your faucet and protects it from freezing and expanding.
Some brands and retailers market these outdoor faucet covers with different names. For example, some of them are known as “garden faucet insulation cover” and some of them are called “insulated faucet socks.”
All these covers do an excellent job. However, if you want to get excellent results, it’s important to seal them tightly to offer great thermal protection.
At What Temperature Should You Cover the Faucets?
Cover the outdoor faucets before the temperature dips below freezing.
Especially when the temperature dips below 28 degrees and you think that your outdoor faucet will not be able to survive such freezing temperature, then it’s best to cover them fully with recommended faucet covers. So, when you make your to-do list for your garden or yard, do not forget to include “covering the outdoor faucet” in the list before the cold weather kicks in.
Protect Your Faucets: Extra Tips
When the temperature dips below freezing, it’s crucial to protect your faucets with covers and follow other preventive measures.
To protect it from harsh weather conditions, it’s important to disconnect everything from your outdoor faucet especially if there is any threat of freezing.
It’s recommended to remove the “y splitter”, its hose, pool filler, as well as irrigation timer. By doing this, you can simply prevent your faucet from being frozen and damaged.
It’s also important to follow preventive measures when you turn on the faucets in Springtime for the first time and are not sure whether they will be working fine or there will be any kind of leakage.
Final Thoughts
We know that there are tons of jobs to do inside and outside the home when the weather changes. However, covering your outdoor faucets should be your #1 priority.
It’s always a good step to take care of things before the temperature drops to zero. You can save yourself from a lot of hassle if you follow the preventive measures beforehand.
At KibiUSA, you can find a couple of kitchen faucets in different styles, colors, and designs. You can choose from brushed gold, brushed nickel, chrome, and matte black. So, if you are looking to buy a faucet for your outdoor kitchen, make sure you visit the website first so you can buy the right faucet cover based on its design.