TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — There is a freeze warning for several counties in Tampa Bay that could put your water pipes at risk if they are exposed.

Donald Hayes had a pinhole leak in his water pipe. His cat Willow brought it to his attention Thursday morning.

“I went over there, and she was getting a drink out of (a) little leak in the pipe,” Hayes said.

Lucky for him, his family works with AVID Plumbing. The company warns of how exposed pipes, like Hayes has, can freeze and burst.

“Typically pipes on the outside of houses here in Florida don’t have insulation on them, they are exposed. So yeah, they need to be wrapped with pipe insulation and covered up before the freeze tonight,” said Robert Watkins with AVID Plumbing. “We have a lot of like plastic sprinkler pipes in ceilings and stuff that are not typically insulated by pipe installation, and we’re just not simply built for cold weather.”

After the plumber repaired the leak in the joint, Watkins measured and cut pipe insulation, which you can buy from any hardware store and install yourself.

“There’s different diameters for different pipe size so take note of that,” Watkins said. “You don’t want no big gaps or voids when you wrap your pipe.”

Watkins also recommends people turn on a faucet in their home, enough to create a stream. This keeps the water circulating and the pipe will adjust to the temperature surrounding it.

If Hayes’s cat Willow didn’t catch this leak, Watkins said the joint in the pipe would have most likely iced over during the freeze and would have busted at the joint.

“If you can go outside and see ice on the windshield of your car, (frozen pipe) is definitely going to happen,” Hayes said.

Watkins said the cold weather could’ve played a role in the initial leak by shrinking down the pipe and breaking the connection loose in the joint.

It’s important to know where the shut off valve is at your house. In the event that a freeze or a break happens in your pipes, Watkins said to shut the water off immediately and call a plumber.