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Prepare, Insulate, Protect, Easy

There are a number of quick and easy steps you can take to get your home ready for winter. This will protect your pipes and other plumbing or heating fixtures and fittings (such as water tanks, outside taps, and water meters) from freezing, bursting, and flooding your home or business premises.

One of the first essential steps we advise all our customers to take, is to lag your pipes. Ensure you check your garage or loft for water pipes or tanks that might freeze in extreme low temperatures.

A Step-by-Step Guide for Lagging your Pipes

Lagging – or insulating – pipes around your home, particularly any pipes that might be exposed to the cold, is a simple DIY project.  Watch the video below where we’ve broken the process down into easy steps.

Don’t lag behind

Wrap your pipes with lagging to prevent them from freezing (or even bursting) this winter. Pay attention to the pipes in the garage, loft, or those outside your home, as these are the ones most likely to freeze when the temperature drops.

Your local DIY store should have everything you need and don’t forget to use waterproof lagging for outdoor pipes. 

More ways you can prepare

  • Make sure you have details to hand of who you need to contact if you have a burst, so you can get this repaired as soon as possible.

    • Check your home insurance covers you for leaks or burst pipes.

    • Have the details of your local plumber to hand, if you don’t know a plumber you can find one here watersafe.org.uk.

    • You can find weather updates from the Met Office for your area by heading to their website. 

    • The Met Office have also provided some useful advice for getting winter ready here.

  • it’s important you know where your stop tap is, in case you need to switch your water off in a hurry. Your stop tap is usually located under your kitchen sink.

    • Try to avoid temperatures getting too cold inside your home, even if you’re not there. This will help to stop pipes freezing. You can use the frost setting on your central heating, or if you can, leave it on very low when you’re out or away.

    • Open any cupboard doors where there are pipes, to allow heat circulation.

    • Block out chilly breezes by keeping windows closed, sealing draughts and using draught excluders on doors.

    • Use an outdoor tap cover to prevent it from freezing.

  • Your water meter is usually in a cupboard outside your property. To avoid it freezing, make sure you pack the cupboard with insulation material and insulate the pipes leading into the cupboard.

    • Once a year you should bleed your radiators. This is the process of releasing trapped air from a radiator, so that hot water can circulate and heat the room more efficiently.

    • You should have your boiler serviced yearly to ensure it’s working correctly.

    • Check for damage on any pipes and outdoor taps. Making sure your pipes are in tip top condition, will help to prevent bursts and leaks occurring.

Have frozen Pipes?

See our guide on how to thaw out a frozen pipe.

Have a burst pipe?

See our burst pipe page and follow our tips to help get you back up and running.

Get water fit!

Try our new personalised water usage platform and save water, save money, save nature!

Protect your home for the winter weather

see the complete playlist

Important notice

Heavy rainfall and sewer flooding

The heavy rainfall may be causing flooding in some parts of the region.

Our teams are out working hard across the region helping our customers who have experienced sewer flooding in their homes.

If you’re experiencing flooding from a road or footpath and there is no evidence of sewage (toilet paper etc.) please report this to your local council, who are responsible for highways drainage flooding.

Please be aware that our phone lines are much busier than normal, take a look at our flooding page for further advice on what to do if you’re affected by flooding.

Heavy rainfall across the North West may be causing flooding in some parts of the region. Our teams are out working hard across the region helping our customers who have experienced sewer flooding in their homes.

Flooding advice

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