Driving home last night in the first snowstorm of November 2014 I couldn’t help but think about the things I needed to do to get my home ready for winter. We have a great gutter cleaning service that we provide to customers- and I use that too! So, I can check the gutter cleaning off the list (You can too if you like by contacting us if you’re in the Cleveland area!). One of the other things that’s really easy to forget is to make sure that all the garden hoses are taken off the outside spigots-or sil-cocks. Why? For most homes built after the ’60’s, the outside sil-cocks were designed to be frost-proof- meaning that you didn’t have to turn the water off to them inside and drain the lines outside to keep them from freezing. The way this is accomplished is by using a 10″ barrel, where the actual shut off gaskets are about 10″ into the house where it’s warm. If you keep the hose on outside, though, the barrel freezes, splits, and offers you the awesome gift of a spring flood the first time you try to use the sil-cock. So, take the hose off now, leave it off all winter, and you’ll be just fine!
