Don't let the cold get your home or car | Home & Garden

SALISBURY - The first really cold snap can cause an even worse cold snap, the kind that causes pipes in your house to burst.

It's a messy and expensive problem, but one that can be easily avoided.

"You will not notice a busted pipe until it does defrost," said Tony McDaniel, a supervisor with Carolina Pipe Cleaning in Salisbury.  "By that time everything under the house is getting wet, possibly ruin air condition ducts, foundation, anything like that."

If your home is your largest investment, you don't want that kind of trouble.

VIDEO: Protecting your pipes

Here are the simple fixes, recommended by McDaniel, starting on the outside:

"Make sure all vents on your foundation are closed," McDaniel said. "Any hoses, hose bibs, detach them, the water will actually freeze them and cause your pipes to burst, cover all hose bibs."

Easy enough, moving inside Tony also says you keep pipes warm by opening cabinet doors and he adds that keeping a little water running can also help.

"Leave one or a couple faucets dripping. That will keep water circulating and the pipes are less likely to freeze," McDaniel said.

And, if you use well water, it's a good idea to keep a low wattage light bulb turned on in the well house.  That should give off enough heat to keep the pipes from freezing.

And this first day of really cold weather has a lot of folks dealing with car trouble.

A drastic change in temperature can cause problems, unless you take a few simple steps now.

"We had a car here that was smoking and overheating because it was low on coolant," said Tim Wheet, owner of Rusher Tire and Auto in Salisbury.  "We filled it up with coolant and sent it on down the road.  When the weather gets a little colder what we see more problems with is batteries and overheating on vehicles from lack of coolant."

Checking battery connections is a good idea, and your tires, too.

"When the colder weather comes around your tires will normally go down some so it's pretty important to keep your air pressure checked when you have a drastic change in temperature," Wheet added.

Under inflated tires will hurt your gas mileage and cause the tire to wear unevenly.