New Year, Same Pipes

1/2/2020 (Permalink)

As the New Year begins and the temperatures drop, now is a good time to make sure your business is prepared for the cold weather and freezing temperatures. One of the leading causes for loss of business over the winter months is flooding. If you have restrooms in your business, the increase of holiday traffic can lead to an overworked sewage draining system. The plummeting winter temperatures can lead to broken pipes. Any one of these situations can lead to loss of income at a time when business is getting ready to slow down or affect your holiday rush.

The holiday rush increases traffic dramatically to local businesses. Black Friday starts the intense shopping season until the days after Christmas. If your business has restroom facilities , they are inundated with traffic for months and having some safeguards in place to prevent overflows and drain blockage is vital to maintain income and steady customer flow. Here are some tips to help keep business going:

1. Have an efficient electric hand dryer installed into your facilities. This prevents paper towels from being thrown into toilets or drains.
2. Make sure you have sanitary napkin containers available to prevent sanitary napkins from being flushed.
3. Have an employee check facilities hourly to ensure all toilets and urinals are functioning correctly.

As the temperatures drop this winter and threats of arctic blasts with their extremely low temperatures move in, the threat of frozen and burst pipes increases quickly. Here are some tips to help prevent pipes from freezing:

1. Make sure you have adequate insulation in basements, attics, crawl spaces and around windows and doors.
2. Install a digital smart thermostat. It can be controlled and checked on from outside of your business. It also learns behaviors of the occupants and will adjust the temperatures to presets determined by you.
3. If you have an oil or gas heat system, set up automatic delivery to prevent running out of fuel over the winter months.
4. Open cabinet/counter doors to prevent freezing of pipes underneath counter tops during extreme temperature drops; this allows warm air to circulate around the pipes and prevent freezing.
5. Leave faucets dripping on extremely cold nights, the water flow will help them thaw out pipes that may have started to freeze.

If you have any flooding issues in your business , call us here at SERVPRO of White Plains and New Rochelle. We have a crew ready to go 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, holidays included. We can respond immediately and help you get your business back to “Like it never even happened.”