TYLER, Texas — Before the cold front heads into our area, East Texans are preparing their homes for the winter weather.
Jordan Sanchez is a plumber at Rub-A-Dub Plumbing and he has tips on the best way to keep their homes safe.
"The number one thing you can do is have a plan. Understand where your water cutoffs are, either in the flowerbed or the city meter in case of emergency," Sanchez said. "Next thing I would recommend is detaching your hoses from your hose bibs, and then either putting a cover on them or wrapping them in a dry towel."
Sanchez said the most frequent issue they typically have to deal with is a home’s connection to its outdoor water hose.
"In my experience, what I’ve seen is exterior hose bibs bursting either in the wall or otherwise having some sort of issue because people forget to detach their hose from it," Sanchez said.
Another way to prepare your home for the winter weather is by buying non-perishable food items, outdoor pipe insulators and an alternative heating source.
Blakeney Hardware owner Jason Blakeney said they have residents covered with several of the items that will help keep their home safe.
"Get you some newspaper, put on your faucet, then get you a sandwich bag, a Ziplock bag over that newspaper, and then put you some duct tape around it," Blakeney said. "This will keep your outside faucets from busting."
The time to prepare is now and not later when the thermostat drops below freezing.
"We have over 6,000 faucet covers coming, we got more pipe insulation, we have starter logs for your fireplaces, we have generators coming, and just PVC for general. If you do have a pipe bust, we can help you with that as well," Blakeney said.