Winterization Tips For Your Church Facility

Winter 2021
By Tim Cool 


With winter fast approaching, it is a wonderful time to look at some of the ways you can winterize your church facility. There are several valuable resources out there that detail many of the most common items to check.
 
Check Your Facility’s Outside Faucets: Outside faucets are one of the items you certainly want to check. If you experience even brief periods of freezing temperatures, adding simple insulation covers (typically available in any hardware store/department) is a cost-effective way to reduce the likelihood of broken pipes at the faucet. 
Check External Access, Insulation, and Water Lines: Check your mechanical rooms with external access doors. Particularly the rooms that only have access from the exterior. These rooms tend to be built on the other side of the insulated and conditioned space. 

Check Your Church Facility’s Equipment: Make sure as part of your winterization process that you know what type and size of equipment you have, so if you need to fix it, you can get it ordered quickly. Parts and equipment are delayed at this time; there may not even be the possibility of expediting anything as it simply may not be available.
 
Clean Roof Drains: If you have a flat to low slope roof, check your roof drains, scuppers, and the tops of the downspouts. Clean them out, do everything in your power to ensure unrestricted flow. 

Offer Safe Accessibility: Keep in mind some of your accessible routes on the exterior can become your most treacherous. Due to the landing requirement, the ramped walkways can ice at the top and bottom of the ramped area, and the handrails can also ice over. 
Electrical Service Panels: Finally, know where your main electrical service panels, water mains, and gas mains are located and how to shut them off. Should you experience a significant storm, disruptions in service and surges in the grid are likely, even as crews work to restore power. 

I pray that this winter goes well for you and that you are better prepared than many of us in Texas last year during the "Snowpocalypse.” Many of the preceding items were lessons learned from that event. The main thing: think through what could happen and do your best to address it. 


Tim Cool - Smart Church Solutions