Frozen water pipes
If your heating system fails during the winter months, your water pipes are at risk of freezing and exploding. The resulting damage can be immense. It is estimated that a bursting pipe can result in the loss of about 400 liters of water per hour (or two full baths). This figure increases to 9,600 liters per day and 67,200 liters per week. Most Canadians are unaware that their insurance company can deny a claim for damage related to water pipe blasts unless certain conditions are met.
Many property insurance policies specify that if you are away from home for more than a few days, you must:
shut off the main water supply to the house and empty the pipes - remember to turn off each tap after emptying; and
make sure someone comes every day to check that the heating system is working properly.
These practices make sense, given that the majority of frozen pipe problems occur in an unsupervised home. It is therefore important to prevent a pipe explosion before it occurs. Each year, however, many Canadians forget to empty their water lines or take appropriate monitoring precautions and return to their homes with severe water damage.
People commonly have to be away from their homes for many reasons, such as:
vacations;
business travel;
visits to relatives;
family emergencies;
hospital stays.
The next time you plan to leave home or need to be away unexpectedly, remember to take care of the water line problem before you leave. Shutting off the water and draining the water lines only takes a few minutes and can save you on costly uninsured repairs.
إرسال تعليق