How to Prepare Your Drains for Winter in Yorkshire

Every year, as soon as the temperature drops below zero, our phones start ringing off the hook. Frozen pipes, blocked outside drains, overflowing gullies, and backed-up manholes. It happens every winter across Leeds, Bradford, York, Harrogate and the rest of Yorkshire, and most of it is preventable.

Here's what you can do before the cold sets in to protect your drainage system and avoid an expensive emergency call-out on the coldest night of the year.

Clear Your External Drains and Gullies

This is the single most effective thing you can do. External drain covers, gullies and channel drains collect leaves, dirt and debris throughout autumn. If they're still clogged when winter rain arrives, the water has nowhere to go. Add freezing temperatures and you've got ice forming over blocked drains, which then backs up into your property when the thaw comes.

Walk around your property and lift every drain cover and gully grate you can find. Remove any debris — leaves, mud, litter, moss. Flush them through with a hose or bucket of water to make sure water flows away freely. It takes twenty minutes and could save you thousands in water damage.

Check Your Gutters and Downpipes

Blocked gutters overflow, and that water runs down your walls, pools around your foundations, and finds its way into your drainage system. In freezing weather, water trapped in blocked downpipes expands as it freezes, cracking the pipe. Come the thaw, you've got water pouring down the outside of your house.

Clear your gutters of leaves and debris before December. Make sure each downpipe is draining freely into the correct drain or soakaway. If you can't reach them safely, book a gutter clean — it's one of the cheapest jobs that prevents one of the most expensive types of damage.

Insulate Exposed Pipes

Any pipes that run through unheated spaces are at risk of freezing. This includes pipes in garages, lofts, under-floor voids, and external walls. When water freezes inside a pipe, it expands and the pipe cracks or bursts. You won't know about it until the ice thaws and water starts flooding out.

Pipe insulation (lagging) is cheap and easy to fit. Foam pipe sleeves from any hardware shop slip over exposed pipes in minutes. Pay particular attention to:

• Pipes in the loft — especially common in older Leeds terraces where the cold-water tank is in the roof space
• Pipes against external walls
• Outside taps and their supply pipes
• Pipes in the garage or outbuilding

Know Where Your Stopcock Is

If a pipe does burst, you need to turn the water off immediately. The stopcock (main water shut-off valve) is usually under the kitchen sink, but in older Yorkshire properties it could be anywhere — under the stairs, in the cellar, or even outside under a metal cover in the pavement.

Find it now, while it's not an emergency. Make sure it turns freely. If it's stiff or seized, get it replaced before winter. A working stopcock is the difference between a bucket of water on the floor and a flooded ground floor.

Deal with Slow Drains Before the Freeze

If any of your drains are already running slowly, get them sorted now. A partial blockage that's just about coping in mild weather will become a full blockage when cold conditions slow water flow even further. Grease that's coating the inside of your kitchen drain solidifies faster in cold pipes, and what was a slow drain in October becomes a completely blocked one in January.

A professional drain clean before winter strips the pipes back to clean and gives you the best possible chance of getting through to spring without problems.

Protect Your Septic Tank

If your property runs on a septic tank or treatment plant rather than mains drainage, winter brings specific risks. The bacterial activity that breaks down waste slows significantly in cold temperatures. If the tank hasn't been emptied recently and is already near capacity, reduced bacterial action can cause it to fill faster and potentially overflow.

Have your septic tank emptied and inspected before winter if it's due. Check the soakaway is draining properly. A waterlogged soakaway combined with winter rain is a recipe for sewage backing up into the property.

What to Do If Pipes Freeze

If you turn on a tap and nothing comes out on a cold morning, you've likely got a frozen pipe. Here's what to do:

• Don't panic. A frozen pipe isn't a burst pipe — yet.
• Open the affected tap slightly so water can flow once the ice melts.
• Thaw the pipe gently with a hairdryer, hot water bottles, or towels soaked in warm water. Start from the tap end and work back towards the frozen section.
• Never use a blowtorch, open flame, or boiling water — the sudden temperature change can crack the pipe.
• If you find a burst, turn off the stopcock immediately and call a plumber.

When to Call Us

If your external drains are frozen solid, a manhole is overflowing, or you've got a drainage emergency caused by winter weather, call us on 0333 577 4242. We operate 24/7 through the winter and have the equipment to deal with frozen drains, ice blockages, and the flooding that follows. See our water main leak detection and repair case study for a real example of how we handle winter water emergencies.

Our drain unblocking service is available at a fixed fee day and night, including Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year. Because blocked drains really don't care about bank holidays.