Benefits of Insulating Plumbing Supply Pipes

Prevent Cracked Pipes

First and foremost, installing pipe insulation around your plumbing pipes helps prevent them from freezing and bursting in the event they are exposed to below freezing temperatures.

Cracked plumbing pipes can cause very extensive and expensive damage, potentially forcing homeowners out of their home for awhile during home repairs.

Insulting plumbing pipes also has another key benefit. Insulated pipes save on home energy bills. For example, insulated hot water plumbing pipes lose less heat when hot water is transferred from the water heater to the faucet demanding the hot water. Thus a homeowner can save money by preventing the heat transfer loss, and in addition get hot water to the faucet quicker. Similarly, insulating cold plumbing pipes helps prevent cold water from warming up as it travels from the cold water storage tank to the demanding cold water faucet.

Conventional plumbing pipe foam insulation comes in common lengths and diameters to support standard plumbing pipe diameters. The foam pipe insulation has a slit already down the length of it so that it can easily be slid over the plumbing pipe.

There is also self-sealing pipe foam insulation. With this type of foam pipe insulation there is an adhesive along the slit in the pipe insulation protected by clear plastic tape. After slipping the foam pipe insulation over the plumbing pipes, simply remove the plastic tape and press the two edges of the seam together to form a tight seal.