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So why do kitchen sinks need to be on an outside wall? They don't! Things have just always been done that way. So move the kitchen sink to a center island or an inside wall. Just do a little thinking / redesigning and things can work better. But it takes someone who is smart and has a bit of ingenuity to come up with new and different designs.
My house, built in 1960, has no plumbing on the outside wall except that for the outside hose bibs. One of the few things they did right. I don't think it's necessary to move the plumbing off the outside wall, but probably opening up the wall, sealing the space, and insulating is called for.
I've read a lot about heating tape not being a good choice unless you're on top of it constantly, always checking for problems, and replacing it every couple of years.
"replacing it every couple years "
Yes, nothing worse than having frozen pipes because the heat tape no longer works.
On my first farm, the small pump house used heat tape and I got fed up with it.
I bought an actual thermostat and plugged a small electric heater into the thermostat set at 40.
Problem solved.
You gotta do what you gotta do..................but I never was a fan of heat tape .
Well, we met with the guy last night, and he first said that nope, never happened while he lived there so he too thinks it's the crazy cold. The plan is to go in from the outside and look at what's going on with the pipes and the insulation, and add more as necessary both along that wall, and pipe insulation where the water pipe comes down from the attic into that wall. Hopefully we can get that done early next week and see how it goes, since the stupid cold will be around all next week too. Yay.
The cool unrelated thing? He told us how he built the woodstove hearth using bricks from the couple-towns-over prison when they were renovating it! Kinda neat!
Apparently that's how all the water pipes in the houses in that neighborhood are - they ran them through the attic (which is more of a crawl space - these are ranches) instead of through the slab, to make them more accessible. He seemed to say that that was the town code at the time, but I was being distracted by trying to lock the cat up so may have missed that part, Whatever the reason, the water pipes run from the meter in the attached garage through the attic.
My house, built in 1960, has no plumbing on the outside wall except that for the outside hose bibs. One of the few things they did right. I don't think it's necessary to move the plumbing off the outside wall, but probably opening up the wall, sealing the space, and insulating is called for.
My kitchen sink is on an outside wall, but I have a basement, so the pipes are actually inside the cabinet rather than in the wall. My pipes have never frozen there. When people say "crack your cabinets to prevent pipes from freezing", they're thinking of a setup like mine where the water and drain are inside the cabinet not inside the wall.
Your suggestion for sealing and insulating the wall containing the pipes is probably the best and most effective solution.
Well, we met with the guy last night, and he first said that nope, never happened while he lived there so he too thinks it's the crazy cold. The plan is to go in from the outside and look at what's going on with the pipes and the insulation, and add more as necessary both along that wall, and pipe insulation where the water pipe comes down from the attic into that wall. Hopefully we can get that done early next week and see how it goes, since the stupid cold will be around all next week too. Yay.
The cool unrelated thing? He told us how he built the woodstove hearth using bricks from the couple-towns-over prison when they were renovating it! Kinda neat!
Sorry, but I don't buy that unless you can find a missing clapboard or bad caulking or some other hole that's allowing cold air penetration into the wall now when it didn't before. Below zero temps are fairly common in most of southern NE away from the coast. Even in the Boston area, there will occasionally be below zero temps, so wretchedly frigid weather has happened before in your area since this house was built. Something else has changed if this is the first time it's happened.
Is there a window over your sink? If there is, you might want to inspect it carefully. If the window was replaced fairly recently, the insulation and caulking around it might not have been done properly. If it's the original window, the original caulk may have given up the ghost.
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