The plumbing year in Queens, month by month

• January

  The month pipes freeze. Keep the heat on in every room that has plumbing in an outside wall, open the cabinet doors under sinks on the coldest nights, and know where your main shutoff is before you need it at two in the morning.

• February

  If a pipe did freeze and then thawed without bursting, do not assume you got away with it. Ice splits copper lengthways and the split often only opens up under pressure weeks later. A thawed line that now weeps at a joint is telling you something.

• March

  The thaw finds every crack. Check the basement floor and the perimeter for damp after the first warm week, test the sump pump by pouring a bucket of water into the pit, and look at the discharge line outside for ice damage.

• April

  Spring rain season. Backwater valves and floor drains get tested now, not in September. This is also the cheapest month of the year to have a house sewer line put on camera, because nothing is broken yet.

• May

  Outside taps and hose bibs back into service. Turn the water on slowly and watch the inside of the wall behind it — a frost-damaged sillcock usually shows itself in the first minute, and it is far better to find it with somebody standing there.

• June

  Remodel season. If a bathroom or kitchen is being done this year, get the rough-in plumbing looked at before the tile goes on. Everything is cheap while the wall is open and expensive the day after it closes.

• July

  The month tree roots are at their most active and slow drains become blocked ones. If a main line has needed clearing in the last two summers, this is the month to jet it and put a camera down rather than snake it again.

• August

  Water heaters fail in August more often than people expect — the tank has been quietly corroding all year and the demand from returning holidays finds it. If yours is over ten years old and the base is stained, plan the replacement rather than wait for it.

• September

  Book the autumn inspection. Same logic as April: the first genuinely heavy rain fills the schedule with flooded basements and backed-up drains, and you would rather not be one of them.

• October

  Sump pumps, backwater valves and yard drains all get tested this month. Disconnect and drain garden hoses, and shut and drain the outside taps before the first hard night.

• November

  Insulate exposed pipe in crawl spaces, garages and unheated basements now. Also worth locating and labelling every shutoff in the house while it is comfortable to be down there — the main, the water heater, and one at each fixture.

• December

  If you are away, do not turn the heat off. Leave it at a steady minimum, ask somebody to look in, and consider shutting the main and draining the system for a long absence. A frozen pipe in an empty house is the single most expensive thing on this list.

If you smell gas, leave the building and call your gas utility's emergency line from outside — do not operate switches on your way out. Never stand in water that has reached an outlet, an appliance or an electrical panel; cut the power only if you can do it safely from dry ground, otherwise leave and call the utility. General guidance on this page is not a substitute for a licensed plumber looking at your own building.