Create A Faucet Cover In Seconds With This Genius Pool Noodle Hack

Many homeowners prepare to ensure their homes are safe, warm, and winter-ready before the onset of freezing temperatures. However, it's easy to overlook outdoor faucets, and neglecting to protect these fixtures from harsh, sub-zero conditions can lead to a significant risk of pipes bursting due to freezing.

The good news is that freeze-proofing your outdoor pipes is very easy. If you have a pool noodle lying around, you can easily craft a DIY faucet cover that can provide adequate insulation for your outdoor faucet, protecting it from the cold.

This practical hack, courtesy of Brian Greul, is a simple way to protect your outdoor faucet using a pool noodle, tape, and cutting tool. Serrated knives are the best tools to use when cutting a pool noodle. Cut the pool noodle crosswise, ensuring the length covers your faucet completely. From the remaining noodle, trim a small piece to plug one end of your cut section, then secure this plug with tape. Depending on the size of your faucet, you might need to slice a few inches along the length of the pool noodle cover to allow it to open up and fit around the faucet. Wrap the noodle cover around the faucet, and use tape to seal the section where the noodle was cut.

Faucet covers trap heat from indoor plumbing and prevent cold air from traveling from the outdoor faucet into your plumbing system. Commercial ones typically have an outer layer of hard plastic and an inner layer of Styrofoam. Meanwhile, pool noodles are made of polyethylene foam, the same material used in foam pipe insulation. Polyethylene foams are excellent insulators and moisture-resistant making them ideal faucet cover alternatives. However, while faucet covers should be enough to prevent burst pipes, they're not foolproof. They shouldn't be relied on for an entire winter, especially when temperatures drop below 28 degrees for over four hours. Other short-term alternatives aside from using faucet covers include letting your faucets drip and using WD-40 on the exterior of exposed pipes to prevent the pipes from freezing.

Jake Romano, general manager of an Ottawa-based plumbing service, told Homes and Gardens that these alternatives may be unnecessary if you properly winterize your outdoor faucets. He said, "If you properly close your outdoor faucet for the winter, then you shouldn't have any problems. Properly closing your outdoor faucet means shutting the water supply shutoff valve inside your home that supplies water to the outdoor faucet, then opening the outdoor faucet to drain the water from the line."