Your water treatment appliances as well as your plumbing pipes are often found in places that aren’t insulated. For many people this means their basement, crawl space or even their under-sink cabinets. As a result, when the temperatures plummet, these appliances are at risk for freezing and bursting. Then, when temperatures moderate, water leaks from the broken pipes. This can cause untold damage to your home as well as lower your water pressure and raise your water and energy bills. There’s also the cost of having all of this fixed.
Impacting Water Quality and Treatment
Cold temperatures lower something called the Langelier Saturation Index. Also called the LSI, it measures how much calcium carbonate is in the water. Though it’s mostly used to check how balanced your pool water is, the LSI can predict if the water starts to deposit limescale in your plumbing pipes and corrode them. Cold weather also makes water denser or more viscous than usual. This makes it harder for water to pass through filters. On top of this, freezing temperatures make the filters and membranes in your water treatment system brittle. It can even cause their housing to crack.
Freezing weather worsens other problems that affect the quality of your water. Road salt can contaminate the groundwater, and spike the levels of sodium in your drinking water. This can be problematic for people who need to keep an eye on their sodium intake. If your freshwater is brought in through metal pipes, the cold weather and the lower LSI it brings can also cause the metal to leach into the water.
What Can Be Done
The solution to the damage caused by wintry weather is to warm everything up. You or your water treatment professional can wrap the pipes of your water treatment system in insulating foam. A professional can also show you how to safely use heat tape or even space heaters to keep the area warm. They can arrange for warm and cold water to mix in your water softener or water purifier. Other options are to drain your water treatment system if you’re not going to use it for the winter and to spray filtering membranes with propylene glycol to keep them from freezing.
Other ways to beat the cold when it comes to water treatment are to have a professional regularly monitor and maintain your system. They can also raise the feed pressure to counteract the density of the water. A professional can also calibrate any chemicals used to compensate for cold temperatures.
Winter’s cold can wreak havoc on your water systems, even if the systems are indoors. If your water treatment system needs servicing, get in touch with our professionals at Dilling Heating & Cooling of Charlotte, NC.
