News

You might think that you don’t need to do much to your home to prepare it for winter, but our homes are as vulnerable to cold weather as we are.

Each winter many homes suffer burst pipes causing misery and inconvenience. By taking a few simple precautions you can easily avoid these incidents happening in your home.

Here are a few tips to help get your home ready for the cold weather.

• Stop Tap / Stopcock
  Find out where the stop tap / stopcock is to turn off the water supply to your home; you can usually find it under the sink or stairs on the ground floor.
  Check to see if the stop tap / stopcock works as if you do suffer a burst pipe you will need to turn it off quickly to prevent water damage.
  If you do have to turn off the water supply make sure you also switch off the boiler and the immersion water heating system if you use one. 
• Taps
  Report any dripping taps to us. Ensure that taps are turned off and ball valves and taps are repaired as they can cause waste pipes to freeze. If the weather is cold enough drips can freeze before they drain away. If left for long enough pipework can block and cause pipes to burst completely.
• Heating your home
  Make sure you know how to use your heating system so your home is heated efficiently.
  Turn your heating on and check that your boiler, room thermostat, and any thermostatic radiator valves, if you have them, are working properly. You might need to ‘bleed’ some of your radiators if you find cold spots; there are plenty of videos on YouTube to show you how to do this.
  The average temperature to heat your home during winter is 18-21 Celsius. If you can turn the heating down by just 1º, it can help towards reducing your bills. 
  It's also a good idea to keep your heating ticking over, even if you go away.  Ideally you should heat your home for at least one hour every day. You can use the timer on your heating system to make sure it comes off and on.  This helps keeps the system running smoothly, heating your pipes and home.
• Empty Home
  If you are going to leave your home empty for more than a few days, during the winter, ensure you leave your heating on a low level so that pipes don’t freeze.
• Frozen Pipes
  If the pipes in your home do freeze you can thaw them out using warm air or hot water. Never use electrical appliances near water as this can be dangerous. Your pipes should be insulted to prevent them from freezing, if they are not please report this to us. If the frozen pipes form part of the hot water system, turn off or stop the heat source (immersion heater, gas boiler, coal fire, etc.)
• Secure your shed
  Sheds can take a battering during the winter, so make sure doors are shut and locked. Before you do this, you might want to make sure any garden furniture is stored away too.
  If you have any plants that are vulnerable to cold weather, or things such as hanging baskets that can pose a risk should they fall, you should bring these inside as well.
• Home Contents Insurance
  Having Home Contents Insurance gives you peace of mind that your belongings are protected should you have a burst water pipe or leak. Golding Homes is not responsible for any loss to your home contents.

If your heating or hot water should stop working then please contact us as soon as possible so we can arrange an engineer to visit you.