Is Your Home Ready For the Cold Snap? (Phoenix, Tucson: house, heat pump)

[borregokid]

I was down at the Home Depot yesterday and the supply of pipe insulation was almost gone. It seemed like everyone walking out had some pipe insulation. I wasnt here two years ago during the last big freeze but I read so many pipes broke Tucsons water consumption almost doubled and it took about 5 days before most people had their broken pipes fixed. Right now its 24 degrees outside. Its not going to warm up much until wednsday.

One thing I have noticed is that building standards were lax up until maybe 20 years ago. My house is one where the pipes broke under the foundation leading to pipes on the roof. My heating bill should be interesting with single pane windows, no wall insulation and 4 inches in the ceiling. It still beats shoveling snow. Should have brought my snow shovel down so I could look at it now and then as a reminder it could be worst, I could be back north. Keep the water dripping in your house.

[observer53]

I don't think it's going to be cold enough for long enough, here in the Valley, to cause frozen pipe issues. The last "big freeze" was much colder.

[CheyDee]

Originally Posted by observer53

I don't think it's going to be cold enough for long enough, here in the Valley, to cause frozen pipe issues. The last "big freeze" was much colder.

At 2400 ft elevation in Tucson, right now it's 23 deg. Mesquite Creek and Sabino Canyon are showing even colder. (In Mesa it's 29.8, according to Weather Underground, for comparison.) It may not be cold enough for long enough in Mesa, but it may be enough to cause frozen pipe issues for some in Tucson. Looking over the past 12 hours and the next 12 hour temperature projection, it dropped below freezing by 9 PM last night and isn't expected to hit 33 degrees today until around 10 AM. That's 12+ hours of freezing and sub-freezing temperatures.

IMO, it's much better to be safe than sorry.

[tumamoc]

Agreed. And if you are in a jam, you can always use "pool noodles" from the dollar store to insulate water pipes.

[RickTucsonHomes]

Originally Posted by CheyDee

At 2400 ft elevation in Tucson, right now it's 23 deg. Mesquite Creek and Sabino Canyon are showing even colder. (In Mesa it's 29.8, according to Weather Underground, for comparison.) It may not be cold enough for long enough in Mesa, but it may be enough to cause frozen pipe issues for some in Tucson. Looking over the past 12 hours and the next 12 hour temperature projection, it dropped below freezing by 9 PM last night and isn't expected to hit 33 degrees today until around 10 AM. That's 12+ hours of freezing and sub-freezing temperatures.

IMO, it's much better to be safe than sorry.

Ditto all that Plus is is going to be getting colder over the next few days. Low 20's possibly Monday night and even colder in some locations. Hard Freeze warning has been issued. Most definately better to be safe than sorry. Tucson can be quite a bit different from the Phoenix metro area in the winter months.

[borregokid]

Three broken pipes in my neighborhood last night. One person wasnt home and had the water pouring off the roof. I shut it off. Just keep the water dripping.

[RickTucsonHomes]

Originally Posted by borregokid

Three broken pipes in my neighborhood last night. One person wasnt home and had the water pouring off the roof. I shut it off. Just keep the water dripping.

Just saw the updated forcast. Now they are calling for 21 degrees tonight!

[CheyDee]

Originally Posted by borregokid

Three broken pipes in my neighborhood last night. One person wasnt home and had the water pouring off the roof. I shut it off. Just keep the water dripping.

Another thing to do is open the cabinet doors where there are pipes, especially if it's near an outside wall. We do that with the cabinets under our kitchen sink.

Originally Posted by RickTucsonHomes

Just saw the updated forcast. Now they are calling for 21 degrees tonight!

DH may kill me before morning, (figuratively, of course). He thinks our bedroom is exceptionally drafty and hasn't yet noticed I have the window cracked open. I love, love, LOVE "fresh" air coming in, especially when it's so crisp. (I do sleep with a down comforter though.) January & February are my favorite months here.

[Marcy1210]

Originally Posted by CheyDee

Another thing to do is open the cabinet doors where there are pipes, especially if it's near an outside wall. We do that with the cabinets under our kitchen sink.



DH may kill me before morning, (figuratively, of course). He thinks our bedroom is exceptionally drafty and hasn't yet noticed I have the window cracked open. I love, love, LOVE "fresh" air coming in, especially when it's so crisp. (I do sleep with a down comforter though.) January & February are my favorite months here.

When we lived in Colorado and it routinely got below ZERO every night, we'd open the kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors like Chey-Dee said, but with the house heat usually above 60 degrees at night, it was only the powder room sink on a north outside wall that we worried about. We never had frozen pipes there and we'd have months where the overnight temps were between -5 and 25. I don't know why the pipes here freeze so easily.

I also LOVE the cold air in my room at night, and I love winter here because you can have open windows and fresh air. I hate summer when it's 100 degrees at midnight and I have to keep the AC on 24/7. My room never gets below 75 even with the AC on full blast but the other end of the house freezes.

[themudpuppy]

This is my first winter here. I moved from TN where the temperatures were much, much colder, but I find myself worrying a lot more about my pipes here in AZ than I did in TN. In TN my pipes were under the house. If one burst, at least the flooding was contained to the dirt crawlspace. Here my pipes are in outside walls and the attic. This house has a history of the pipes freezing and bursting in the outside wall where the master bathroom is. The temps in my area are expected to drop to 14 degrees tonight. Yes, I am worried.

I've insulated my outside pipes and put styrofoam faucet covers on the outside spigots. As usual, Home Depot in Nogales had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for the faucet covers, so I had to go up to Tucson where they knew exactly what I wanted. I'm letting all my inside faucets drip. But I'm not too sure what to do about my shower. The kind of controls it has is one single handle that starts out with hot water and you turn it to the left for cold water. It only turns, not push/pull, so you can't set it on warm and then pull it until it drips. If you want warm, you get it full blast. So all I can do is drip hot water, which leaves the cold pipes vulnerable. The shower is on the outside wall that has been a problem for the people who lived here before me. I have it dripping on hot as that's all I can do, but I don't know if that's going to be enough.

I've left all the cabinet doors open under sinks. I left all bedroom and bathroom doors open to help circulate heat a little better. I'm keeping the lights on in the master bath to hopefully provide a little more heat. I turned up the heat but it's still cold. That bathroom is the furthest aways from the heat, and it stays cold. The heat here isn't very sufficient to begin with. It's a new heat pump, but some rooms are hot and some never seem to warm up at all.

My washing machine pipes are also on an outside wall, so every few hours I run a little water into the washtub. The pipes in outside walls are not insulated, and I don't know how to reach them to insulate them without ripping out walls and the tile shower surround.

Haven't done anything with the plants. All I have is natural desert cacti, so I hope they survive. Excpet the cholla that I can't seem to get rid of. Would love to see those die but there seems to be nothing short of a nuclear war that can kill those evil plants, so with my luck all the nice cacti will die and the chollas will survive to terrorize me another day.