METAIRIE, La. (WGNO) – Now is the time to get ready for the deep freeze, and for a lot of people, that means wrapping the pipes around your home.

With Christmas weekend just ahead, the weather outside is expected to be frightful, especially for your pipes.

“Everyone needs to wrap their pipes because the freeze, it doesn’t matter who you are, pipes are going to freeze,” Roni Lavenia, who owns Rooter Man, said.

So, pipe insulation is key when the temperatures dip into the 20s.

“On cement or brick houses, slab houses, basically exterior, you want to go around for the hose bibbs, find them, try to wrap those,” Lavenia explained. “If you don’t have insulation because I’m sure it’s out of stock, newspaper with duct tape, towels, wrapping it with duct tape, stuff like that works.”

Lavenia says the process is tedious but fairly simple, and depending on the layout of your home, it shouldn’t take too long.

“You just put it to where you want to measure it. Any pair of scissors works. I just take it, and I’m just cutting it in a circle,” Lavenia said as she demonstrated. “Take this, put it on there, wrap it, and I’m going to disconnect the hose.”

Lavenia also says to let the faucet farthest from your water meter trickle from both sides.

“Whether you’re in a slab home or in a raised home, we do recommend just having a slight trickle on the hot and cold because both lines freeze, hot more likely than the cold because overnight you may be using the restroom, so that does keep the pipe moving, which is important,” Lavenia said.

Don’t overcomplicate it.

“The key is just to protect the area that could potentially be frozen and try to block as much wind as possible coming in,” Lavenia said.

Since it’s a holiday weekend, homeowners are encouraged to be proactive because if your pipes freeze, not only do you have to let it thaw, but your plumber may not be available right away.