Owning a property is a big responsibility, one that requires a great deal of maintenance and upkeep. For the most part, maintaining your home will see you doing regular cleaning and fixing a squeaky floorboard. You might find yourself replacing a cracked bathroom tile, cleaning your windows and checking the boiler once a year. However, there are some aspects of maintaining your home that are a little more complex. This is where pipe lagging comes in.
The Ins and Outs of Pipe Lagging
If you know anything about the pipes in your home, you will know that each property in the UK has a network of water pipes running throughout it. This is how you get both your hot and cold water in multiple rooms; the pipes carry water to your kitchen sink, your toilet and your shower. In order to protect these pipes as much as possible, and to prevent costly damage, pipe lagging is carried out. This involves adding insulation - which can be made from a number of materials, depending on the type of pipes and pipe network you have - which will stop them from freezing in the winter. It will also stop them from unnecessarily losing too much heat and energy.
Though pipe lagging is a more complex task than other areas of house maintenance, it brings with it a number of considerable benefits. Plus, it’s not a job that needs to be done time and time again. Once you have insulated your pipes, you can enjoy knowing that the pipework in your home is not something to worry about. It’s not an ongoing cost or an annual inconvenience, it’s a one time job that can positively impact your home for many years to come.
How Pipe Lagging Can Improve Your Home
There are a number of ways that pipe lagging or pipe insulation can improve your home, four of which we have detailed below. Whether you are hoping to reduce noise pollution or cut down on your energy bills, insulating your pipes can make a significant difference.
- Pipe Lagging Can Lead to a Quieter Home - A lot of people underestimate the amount of noise that travels around the home via pipework; noise can travel from one room to another by travelling through a pipe. If you are someone who likes a peaceful and serene home, pipe lagging can help. By insulating the pipes, lagging cuts down on the amount of noise that is heard around the house. It can also muffle the sound of water travelling through the pipes, something that can be very loud in older houses.
- Pipe Lagging Can Help With Energy Saving - There is no denying that energy saving is something everyone is thinking about at the moment. With rising energy costs, cutting down on the amount of being used is something every household is thinking about. Luckily, pipe lagging can make a significant difference. By preventing heat loss, pipe insulation can reduce the amount of heat lost from the pipe into the outside air. Without high quality insulation, a lot of heat is lost via pipes and this means more energy is needed to heat the home. With as much heat being preserved as possible, the pipes function better and less energy is needed. Of course, this immediately cuts down on energy costs.
- Pipe Lagging Can Make a Home Safer - Regardless of whether you live alone or with a large family, health and safety at home is paramount. There are a lot of ways to ensure your home is safe - such as keeping on top of gas checks and ensuring windows are securely fastened at home - but pipe lagging is something a lot of people forget about. If you have exposed pipework, you are sure to know how hot and cold they can get. This can lead to personal injury, should someone accidentally come into contact with it. Pipe lagging removes this risk by ensuring no extreme temperatures can be felt.
- Pipe Lagging Helps to Prevent Burst Pipes - If you have ever had to deal with a burst pipe at home, you will know how destructive the problem can be. In a matter of minutes, a burst pipe can cause expensive and irreversible damage to your home. This is why preventing burst pipes as much as possible is key, which is where pipe lagging comes in. By insulating pipes, you cut down on the chances of a pipe freezing; though pipes can become very hot, they can also become very cold. This instantly removes one of the main reasons for a pipe to burst.
As you can see, there are many benefits that come with pipe lagging and that is why we recommend ensuring it’s part of your home maintenance plan. Though your pipes might be working okay and doing their job, there is always room for improvement and insulation makes a big difference. After all, there is no need to settle for standard pipes when you could have pipes that are working to their optimum ability.
All Homeowners Should Consider Pipe Lagging
It’s common for a homeowner to overlook certain aspects of home maintenance, whether you are a resident yourself or a landlord who rents your property to tenants. You may have a leaking tap that you keep forgetting to fix or a window lock that keeps getting stuck. Though some aspects of home maintenance can be put on the backburner, pipe lagging should be dealt with as soon as possible. Considering the benefits that come with pipe lagging, and the problems that your home could face without it, it’s not something that homeowners should overlook.
