YORKSHIRE Water is launching a new campaign to advise customers how to “Wrap Up” their homes in preparation for winter.

Last year, York experienced the coldest winter on record, with temperatures reaching -11.4 degrees celsius and causing thousands of homes to suffer from frozen pipes and no water. In a typical December, Yorkshire Water said it would expect to fix about 600 burst pipes, but last year fixed more than 2,200 because of the constant freezing conditions, and this year it has an extra 200 four-wheel-drive vehicles on stand-by to access more remote areas of the region.

The company is advising people to protect all exposed pipe work, cisterns, tanks, taps and water meters in unheated areas with waterproof foam lagging or insulation.

The company also advised customers to know where their stop tap was located, keep a plumber’s telephone number handy in case of an emergency, keep their homes warm by setting central heating on a low heat or a 24 hour constant setting and to ask a neighbour to check for burst pipes if they’re going away on holiday.