<p>It’s well below freezing out, and we’d like to avoid having any burst pipes. Because we are in an area that doesn’t get this cold for extended periods of time, we have wondered how well the pipes are insulated in places we can’t see. We have disconnected the outside hose and turned off the water spickets from inside the house, but do we also need to leave faucets dripping anywhere?</p>
<p>We have a finished basement so its warm enough down there (where the pipes enter the house). But if a pipe burst that would be a major disaster down there, for a variety of reasons. The outside ground is probably frozen at this point, and the temp is predicted to stay this cold (below freezing) for several more days.</p>
<p>I would keep the faucets dripping and open the doors underneath your sinks. That should help them from freezing. If you have toilets that you don’t use much, flush them every so often. Running water will help you from freezing pipes. At least that’s what I’ve been told.</p>
<p>Agree with deb’s post as I have had to read up on the issue. Already have one frozen pipe in water supply to toilet that is near an outside wall. We are trying to thaw it out with a heat lamp.</p>
<p>The place we have had our pipes freeze is our finished basement. The finished part of the basement is above ground (property slopes toward the back). The basement heat is left at 60 or lower b/c no one uses it now that playroom days are behind us. The air temp in the basement remains above 60 w/o the heat ever cycling on. Therein lines the problem b/c the water froze in the pipes. Poor insulation doesn’t help either. I have learned to actively force the heat on during cold spells so that the pipes do not freeze.</p>
<p>We have heat tape on the pipes running to an added-on bathroom that sort of sticks out from the back of the house (it’s over a small crawlspace rather than the basement.)</p>
<p>For really cold nights, we’ve been keeping water in upstairs bathroom trickling.</p>
<p>Last week, the downstairs toilet still froze even with heat tape. Used hairdryer to thaw. H wanted to leave a small space heater running in crawlspace–yikes, no! We may just turn off the water to that room before tonight’s big freeze hits.</p>
<p>Hard to believe it’s going to be single digits when it’s above 50 right now!</p>
<p>OK- have turned up the temp in the basement (though the heat there doesn’t “blow” per se, it has sort of industrial square vents), the sink in the kitchenette and bathroom are on a very slow drip down there, flushed the commode and opened the cabinets under the sinks. Do I need to drip the tub/shower too? And is it necessary to do this upstairs in the main part of the house as well?? We have a lot of bathrooms!</p>
<p>I’d say yes, drip in the tub/shower in the basement.</p>
<p>Are any of the upstairs bathrooms on an outside wall? I’d maybe drip a shower or sink upstairs if it is on an outside wall. Our shower is on an outside wall and I have been dripping it all weekend. I haven’t been doing the sink in the same bathroom, because it is not on the wall and is close to the door, so gets the heat from the rest of the apartment.</p>
<p>OK have the 2 basement sinks on a very slow drip, and the kitchen sink, which is on an outside wall, on a very slow drip as well. Read somewhere it should be warm water, but I didn’t do that. The drips are very slow. Hope thats good enough.</p>
<p>OK, now also have the upstairs bathroom sink that is on an outside wall also on a slow drip. The tub in the basement is not on an outside wall. I am hoping the 2 sinks dripping is enough. Why would the tub also be important? Just wondering. Our spa tub upstairs is on an outside wall. I guess I an do that one too.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be warm water, cold is fine. It is the movement that keeps the pipes from freezing.</p>
<p>Any pipe can freeze, doesn’t matter if it goes to a sink, toilet, or tub.</p>
<p>Also, keep all cabinet doors under the sinks open and that bathroom doors open. Your kitchens and bathrooms may look funny, but it will help to keep the pipes under the sinks warm.</p>
<p>The cold water pipe to my bathroom sink froze last Friday - hot was fine. The pipe is located in an overhang, so it is exposed to the cold more than other pipes. I tried heating the pipe with a hair dryer, holding my thumb over the spigot to force hot water into the cold pipe (by the way, hot water without any cold to balance it out is HOT!), wrapping a hot towel around the pipe, jacking up the heat and closing the bathroom door, putting a space heater in the cabinet, etc. Nothing worked. My brother came over, and he cut hole in the cabinet and in the floor below the cabinet. He put the space heater directly into the hole … 10 or 15 minutes later, the water was flowing. Whew! We have kept it at a drip since, because it is COLD … and will be WELL below 0 tonight. We are also keeping the cabinet open and the bathroom door closed. We have been here more than 27 years and have never had a frozen pipe - and it has been colder than this at times.</p>
<p>The first pipe we had freeze was a shower drain, which was near an outside wall. We got it thawed out and filled the trap with antifreeze and now it’s fine. In the future I think we will just do this preventatively if it is going to be shockingly cold. Our other shower is fine so we are just not using this one until the weather improves, but otherwise we would just add some more antifreeze after each shower I suppose to keep some in the trap.</p>
<p>We did have a thermostat mishap. We manually overrode it when it wanted to turn the temp down for the night to keep the heat running overnight, but we overslept and forgot it would shut off again when it thought we were at work. So the heat was off for a few hours. House was chilly but pipes seem okay. If you have a programmable thermostat, make sure you change it.</p>
<p>Jym, I presume you also winterized your sprinkler system by blowing it out to remove any standing water. The blow out is a recommended step after shutting off the water supply to the irrigation system.</p>
<p>For outdoor spigots, shut off the water supply to them inside, then go out and open them fully. That way there is no ice pressure to burst the pipes, even is any remaining water does freeze. It can expand out the open spigot. Here in the north, spigots have plastic freeze plugs that are designed to burst if you forget to do this – easier to replace a screw-on freeze plug than a burst pipe.</p>
<p>For indoors, if you have water pipes on an outside wall, it’s a good idea to leave a very slow drip – both HOT and COLD contributing. The flow water reduces the odds of a frozen pipe and provides pressure relief in the case of a freeze.</p>
<p>I caught S2 turning the heat off in his apartment when I picked him up from school for break. He misunderstood “turn down the heat”. OY! I had him turn it to about 60. I’m hoping this isn’t too low. :eek:</p>
<p>My parents experienced catastrophic water damages two years in a row, and from the same location. The pipe that froze and burst when it unthawed was located between an upstairs water boiler in the attic and the water line feeding it. No amount of cold water running would have created sufficient movement of hot water and water filling the boiler. They later installed one of those electrified serpentines (as well as an extensive set of dripping pans) and it took care of the problem since then. The unfortunate part was that they followed the “common” advice in the second year and did all the “right things” such as leaving cabinet doors open, let all faucets drip slowly, etc. The reality is that there are a number of pipes that feed from the outside that might not circulate. The attic boiler was a dedicated boiler feeding the dishwasher and washers with higher temperatures. </p>
<p>One has to really think about everything! :)</p>
<p>If you don’t have a heat lamp, a regular lamp with good old-fashioned light bulbs will work. We put one on the floor in front of our kitchen sink (on an outside wall), keep the cabinet doors open, and it seems to do the trick.</p>
<p>Our laundry room/mudroom does not have a heating vent, so we will need to keep the door to that room open tonight so heat from the rest of the house enters that room.</p>
<p>Not related to pipes: I also put draft dodgers (or rolled up towels) at the bottom of exterior doors to help keep the heat in, esp. in said laundry room and kitchen.</p>