Homeowners often find an indoor swimming pool in their property when they haven’t taken proper precautions to prevent or deal with the possibility of freezing pipes. Here are some excellent ways to ensure large quantities of water get in your house!

1. Set your house temperature below 55 degrees. This makes sure that water in pipes close to external walls doesn’t have a prayer at staying liquid!

2. 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!

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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 tongue-in-cheek. Using common sense preventive measures will usually keep you well protected from frozen pipe water damage.