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Water Company Shares Tips To Keep Pipes From Freezing

With bitterly cold temperatures in our immediate future Kentucky American Water has some tips to keep your water pipes from freezing. 

Spokesman Charlie Boland says as water freezes, it expands and can cause pipes to crack, so the best preventative measure is keeping them warm. 

“You want to insulate pipes where they might be in a crawl space or in a garage area or something where you might not have as much insulation.  You can get foam insulation at most any type of home improvement store to put on your pipes," he said.

If lines do freeze, Boland says homeowners can attempt to thaw the pipes with hairdryers or space heaters, but only after shutting off the flow of water. 

“The biggest thing that we stress is that people need to know where their shutoff valve is just in case you would have an emergency.  It’s just important to shut that flow of water of because a little bit of water can do a lot of damage and that can be pretty costly," he said.

More information on how to prevent frozen pipes, and how to deal with them if they do freeze, is available atkentuckyamwater.com.

Copyright 2015 WUKY

Chase Cavanaugh
Chase Cavanaugh first got on the air as a volunteer reader for Central Kentucky Radio Eye, a local news service for the visually impaired. He began reporting for WUKY in February 2012, after receiving his Master’s degree from the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.