Anyone worried about the freeze? (Dallas: houses, water heater, construction)

[tmtex]

Originally Posted by MapleSyrups

What are you wrapping the pipes with?

You can use towels, home depot/lowes and they have pipe wraps, pool noodles

[ChristieP]

We already have our styrofoam faucet covers for the faucets on the house, and a "faucet sock" for the one out at our barn. If you haven't already bought faucet covers, and HD/Lowes is out, you can use two foam beverage cups stacked together. (Don't laugh; it's really the same thing as the styrofoam faucet covers.) That's it. Our water heater is in the garage, and it already has insulated pipes, too.

This is not a big deal. There will not be freezing precipitation or snow like last February. It's only going to be cold for 36 hours, too.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the need for dripping interior faucets a couple years ago just due to the power outage? I don't see why one would need to leave their inside faucets -- or even their exterior hose bibs that are on the house -- dripping if the furnace is running. We got to -16 F here a couple years ago, and I did none of this.

[ChristieP]

Unless that interior faucet is on an exterior wall, there is not really a reason to leave it dripping. At our former house, the kitchen faucet on the north wall had to be left dripping and the cabinet door left open, or it would freeze.

Never leave exterior faucets dripping. They need to be covered completely.

[tmtex]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the need for dripping interior faucets a couple years ago just due to the power outage? I don't see why one would need to leave their inside faucets -- or even their exterior hose bibs that are on the house -- dripping if the furnace is running. We got to -16 F here a couple years ago, and I did none of this.

I "Think" the dripping faucets are for people who will be out of town and no heater on. At least that was a story on the news. Still unless your in a shack I would say it will be all ok. This happens almost every year.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

Unless that interior faucet is on an exterior wall, there is not really a reason to leave it dripping. At our former house, the kitchen faucet on the north wall had to be left dripping and the cabinet door left open, or it would freeze.

Never leave exterior faucets dripping. They need to be covered completely.

This is strange to me. Like I said, we've had -16 F and below zero temps many, many times. I've never done any of this, and I don't know anyone who does.

[ThomasCrown]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

This is strange to me. Like I said, we've had -16 F and below zero temps many, many times. I've never done any of this, and I don't know anyone who does.

It depends on the house, the location of the water line, and the length of time temperatures will be below freezing.



We have two faucets inside upstairs that must be dripped, trickled, really, as they will freeze being that their water lines are on exterior walls. During the last major freeze, losing power our house still never got below 60 degrees inside, but that wasn't enough to keep the cold from dropping the temp enough to freeze those lines inside the walls. Better safe than sorry, we have a friend who lives on the other side of the golf course who didn't drip their faucets and one of their upstairs pipes burst... $110k worth of damage and months and months to repair.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by ThomasCrown

It depends on the house, the location of the water line, and the length of time temperatures will be below freezing.



We have two faucets inside upstairs that must be dripped, trickled, really, as they will freeze being that their water lines are on exterior walls. During the last major freeze, losing power our house still never got below 60 degrees inside, but that wasn't enough to keep the cold from dropping the temp enough to freeze those lines inside the walls. Better safe than sorry, we have a friend who lives on the other side of the golf course who didn't drip their faucets and one of their upstairs pipes burst... $110k worth of damage and months and months to repair.

Interesting. There must be some difference in construction that I'm not aware of.

[Sunbather]

We never lost continuous power during the snow and cold in 2021 and even with the heat on and a small drip on all our faucets and our tub, one of our lines froze last year on the night it got to -2F at our house. It was a hot water line - not enough (or any water) was actually running in this particular line since I didn't have the single lever set in the right position and part of this run was not insulated. So it was just ambient temperature, still water that froze up over night.

Multiple neighbors had pipes freeze here in 2021 though. Most unthawed with no damage. 1 had minor damage and 1 had major damage (ended up leading to major remodels in the house that they had been putting off anyway).

I had piping freeze at my house in SC on a night that got to 7 degrees about 15 years ago. Heat was on (about 68 in the house), but no faucets dripped. It was a new construction house but this bathroom was on an exterior wall. That was not fun. Ever since then, I've dripped faucets below ~25 and if it's in the single digits I switch to a needle thin stream.

As ThomasCrown said: it depends on the location of the water line, how cold it gets, and how long it gets cold. People forget that it wasn't just cold, it didn't get above freezing for a week straight at my house. The morning we woke up to the one pipe frozen, it hadn't been above 12F for almost 48 hours. That's plenty long enough to freeze a portion of 3/4", uninsulated copper in a an old crawl space.

All that being said, I'm not worried about the cold weather this week.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

This is strange to me. Like I said, we've had -16 F and below zero temps many, many times. I've never done any of this, and I don't know anyone who does.

Many homes in Texas and some other southern states are not piped similar to what you are talking about. My old house in Dallas has water heaters, associated supply lines and other water lines (pot filler and an outdoor spigot plumbed over the garage) in the attic. Similar in Colorado would violate code and fail by Nov. 1 most years.

During the big freeze in '21 I ran the spigot mentioned above well over a trickle or it would freeze, obviously that's an outside exposure. I'd also dribble the pot filler and one sink associated with each water heater because of the attic exposure.


________


The place we are renting in VA. has an automatic tankless water heater* - if the power is off for more than 6 hours the system auto-drains - that keeps the garage from freezing, the water pipe is something like 7 feet underground and enters the house near the middle of the home. The power would have to be off for at least a week to allow any freezing problems.


*We have a very similar set up in Beaver Creek as well.


Our lake house in North Texas, colder than DFW, no useful windbreaks etc. has 4 toilets and three showers along exterior walls. If the power fails that'd all begin to freeze within several hours. There I kill the water at the meter, open every fixture and double flush every toilet........I'm lucky that one spigot is down towards our boat dock. Opening that drains all the lines nearly dry.

Per places up north abandoned for weeks or months people do the above and add anti-freeze to toilets, p-traps, washing machine drains or totally drain all water from each including water heaters. Huge pain.