Frozen pipes are the leading cause of catastrophic water damage to tenants’ personal property and college housing.
Please take a moment to learn how to avoid this happening to you.
Here’s how to maintain your unit during the cold weather months:
- Do not set the thermostat any lower than 55 degrees.
- For radiators that have a temperature adjustment dial, do not set the dial any lower than 2.
- If you discover you have a frozen pipe, please notify Facilities at 413-597-2486 or Security at 413-597-4444 immediately.
- Keep the faucet open when thawing frozen pipes to allow water to begin flowing through.
- If your plans involve leaving your residence for an extended weekend or longer:
- Never turn the heat off in your unit, this could lead to a frozen pipe and catastrophic water damage. Saving fuel is nothing compared to what a flood will cost you.
- Install a “red light” freeze-warning alarm that will alert our personnel to any potentially emergency low-temp conditions in your unit while you are away.
- Open the cabinet doors under your sinks to allow for warm room air to flow inside.
- Keep drapes and blinds closed, except when windows are in direct sunlight.
- Put draft snakes on drafty window sills, between window frames, and against doors.
- Check all windows and screen doors to ensure that storm windows are down. Be sure all windows are closed and locked.
- Keep garage doors closed.
- If you have a washing machine, keep the manual water valve in the “off” position whenever you are NOT actively washing clothes.
- If you heat with fuel oil, make sure the tank is full.
- If you have a steam boiler there is a brief weekly maintenance that needs to be performed on the boiler which takes about 5 minutes. If you are unsure about what you should be doing, contact Sharon Marceau.