When the freezing cold hits, you have to make sure you are taking the necessary steps to protect your pipes. This way, you can get through the winter without any hitches. Nothing can break a renter’s happiness than coming home to a burst pipe in sub-zero temperatures which results in a flooded, frozen rental home and damaged belongings. As a landlord, such an event would leave you with costly repairs and an extensive clean-up. You have to do some precautionary maintenance such as heat taping and wrapping to prevent frozen pipes.
The process of heat taping is like an electric blanket for your pipes. It involves an electrical heating element that is secured to a pipe. It helps keep the pipe enough preventing it from freezing. Wrapping a pipe can be done in a lot of ways, from plug-in heating tape to pre-formed foam tube insulation that slides on over a pipe. The kind of covering your pipes need is subject to the severity of the cold where your rental property is located and whether or not your pipes are the right fit for heat tape. Outdoor water spigots must also be protected with an insulated cover.
The hidden pipes are not the only ones that need attention; exposed pipes require as much care and maintenance as well. However, if the cold is fast approaching and you have not yet covered these, what can you do? Asking your tenants in your Blackfoot home to do the heat taping and wrapping themselves wouldn’t be a good idea. Leaving pipe insulation in the hands of your tenants is such a huge risk on your part as there is no assurance that they will do the job correctly. If they have no home maintenance experience, then there’s a strong likelihood that they are going to mess something up in the process.
One other approach is to carry out the heat taping and wrapping yourself. The fact is, insulating pipes is not a tough job, and the materials that you need are not hard to find as they are available everywhere, it still is a risk to do it yourself. Pipe insulation also has to be checked and replaced yearly, which adds an extra possibly time-consuming task to your to-do list.
Of course, with everything else you have to do, pipes might not make it on the to-do list as often as they should. That is why having someone handle it for you can be the best decision you ever make. Real Property Management Pocatello will check and maintain the pipes in your Blackfoot rental property on a routine basis, providing maximum protection from freezing and bursting with zero effort on your part. For more information about our property management services, contact us online or call us at 208-234-1000 today!
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