Tips for protecting your home in sub-zero temperatures

It doesn’t just cause frost bite — the cold weather can also wreak havoc on your home.

When it comes to winter worries, a national survey found Alberta homeowners lead the way.

“Frozen pipes tend to be a really large concern. Ice-damming can also occur quite often when you that freeze and melting period, that’s something we’ve seen quite a bit in Alberta over the past couple of years,” said Curtis Azevedo with FIRST ONSITE Property Restoration.

But, there are some ways to protect it.

“Make sure that your water is turned off to your exterior lines and those lines are cleared. You want to caulk and weather strip your windows and doors and ensure there’s no drafty areas around your home,” he said. “You can also, as preventative maintenance ensure that your insulation in your home is equipped adequately with the correct R-Value for the type of insulation you have.”

With that furnace working overtime to keep you nice and warm, Azevedo recommends having a working smoke and carbon monoxide alarm inside your home.

“The furnace tends to be on at all times during heavy snowfalls,” he said. “If any of the furnace vents get blocked, that can mean an introduction of carbon monoxide into the home.”

As for when crews are the busiest? It might not be when you expect.

“We tend to see a lot of claims kind of at the finish of the polar vortex because that’s when the pipes start to thaw again so as things have frozen and potentially created bursts or holes in the pipes that’s when the water starts coming out,” Azevedo said.