Baby, it's cold outside...

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Hazydurg

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So, we are in the central NY area, and we are -very impatiently- waiting for HEAP to actually, like, start. HEAP is a program to help lower-income folk like us pay for fuel and energy costs. [Long story short, it seems their entire MO is to simply 'don't call us, we'll... call the fuel company' instead]

So, while we are waiting, we can't run our oil-fueled furnace, and my landlord is getting -really- antsy as the temps are supposed to drop quite a bit this week into the low 20s to about the higher teens next week... finally. We are heating the home fine, but the pipes are running apparently beside the ductwork under the floorboard, so he is worried that the pipes will freeze and bust... and if they do, he may just have to evict us, and clearly, I rather not worry about that bit...

So, my question is, if we kept the water dripping, would it cause issues above 10 degrees? Maybe I could run a little oil heater under the home? I honestly donno what else to do, they won't even deliver unless it's 125 gallons, and that's at least $600-ish.
 
You say you now have heat, how do you deal with the cold temps and pipes normally, you could put some sort of electric heat down there but unless it has a thermostat it's not good to leave it in attended
 
You say you now have heat, how do you deal with the cold temps and pipes normally, you could put some sort of electric heat down there but unless it has a thermostat it's not good to leave it in attended
There is no heat below the floorboards at current, we only have electric oil heaters to passively keep the house warm, and we can't light the furnace at current due to, well, lack of oil. Sorry if I phrased that wrong.
 
Keeping the taps cracked open will help. I've been there and done that while living in Rome, NY, with sub zero temps for a couple of weeks at a time. I know it doesn't help like a tank full of oil but thoughts and prayers to you and yours.
 
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Is it possible to set a electric heater below the floorboards to throw some heat in the area of the water pipes.
 
This is a good idea if you have the ability to do anything about it when the temps fall.

Question: How far below freezing, how hard a freeze, does the temperatures have to fall before the expansion of freezing water have to fall before there's risk of a blowout? 25? 20? 15? 10? Zero? The reason I ask is because simply hitting 32 degrees F, (0 degrees C), will not break a pipe.
 
When it gets below 32 I would open a hot and cold faucet to a fast drip. Also open up the kitchen cupboard doors
and the bathroom sink. That will let warm air under the cupboards. If its real cold in the crawl space area I don't think
putting a heater in there will do anything. It would just worry me. Tell your landlord that a good frostec heat tape
would definitely help.
 
When it gets below 32 I would open a hot and cold faucet to a fast drip. Also open up the kitchen cupboard doors
and the bathroom sink. That will let warm air under the cupboards. If its real cold in the crawl space area I don't think
putting a heater in there will do anything. It would just worry me. Tell your landlord that a good frostec heat tape
would definitely help.
One should not need a fast drip. What is needed is a place for the increasing air pressure, from the expanding freezing ice, to escape. It is that air pressure that will burst the pipes. So, just a slow drip will indicate an escape route has been established.
 
One should not need a fast drip. What is needed is a place for the increasing air pressure, from the expanding freezing ice, to escape. It is that air pressure that will burst the pipes. So, just a slow drip will indicate an escape route has been established.
I don't think you understand process of freezing water. As the water freezes, the mass expands. There is essentially no "air" in the water pipes. It is the expanding mass of the water freezing that breaks water pipes. P-traps in sinks have actually broken even though there is air on both sides of the P-trap. The slow flow of water is bringing in warmer water and keeps the water moving in the pipes preventing it to freeze. That will only work until the outside air where the pipe is located gets so cold that the warm and moving water can't keep the water below 32 degrees.

I come from a small rural town in Missouri and my dad ran a welding shop. Every winter he would get calls from people with frozen pipe in their crawl spaces. I would go in and attach one lead from his portable welder to the point where the water came up through the ground from the meter. the other lead would be attached to a water pipe close to where the pipes entered the house. The welder would heat the pipes and melt the ice. He would then bend the float rod in their toilet causing water to continuously flow. That way, no one would turn the water faucet off and stop that flow of water "accidently".
 
I understand what I am shown. On This Old House, Richard demonstrated air pressure bursting the pipes. He had a pressure gauge which showed the very high pressure. Also, living in MN, the slow-drip process is used successfully, on colder than usual days. What can I say??
Apparently, enough movement of water is occurring. What is a slow drip versus a fast drip?? A bit subjective.
 
We use to tell customers with pipes on an outside wall to let the faucets drip and to keep on eye on the sink so that it doesn't
freeze up and cause a sink to overflow after a while. If you have a drip coming out of the faucet once in a while the line is
going to freeze up. The water has to be circulating so it can't freeze. Sometimes it gets so cold for a week straight that
doing the faucets don't help unless you turn it on and let it run slowly. This is just my personal experience after many years in
plumbing service. We had a pipe thawing machine for inside lines and had to call a welder like MicEd said for the main line.
 
Sorry I don't watch to many of those shows anymore. After watching a guy taking a drain apart under a sink using the
channel locks backwards I quit watching. This Old House might be better I don't know.
 
Actually, it was "Ask This Old House." Nonetheless, it was straightforward ... a board with a copper pipe on it with water in it and a pressure gauge on one end.
The water was frozen by some medium and the pressure started climbing. It rose very high and the pipe burst.
 
Dripping the faucets works because the water coming out of the city main is above freezing. You just have to drip it fast enough before the cold surrounding air freezes the water.

The colder the water and the colder ambient temperature is the faster you’ll need to drip or run the faucets to exchange the water before it freezes.

This old house is stupid. 🤡
 
He’s a liar. That’s why we test with hydrostatic pressure and not just air so things don’t explode and become projectiles.

Running water will freeze solid, just like a shallow running stream.

You drip faucets because the city main or well water is warmer than freezing. You have to drip them to keep the exchange happening or the cold Ambient air will freeze that moving water. How much you have to drop depends on how cold the city or well water is and how cold the ambient temp is.

Richard truly is a Dick.
 
SawSaw .... Thanks for the education. Ignore all the "know-it-alls"


sarg and sawsaw, you have misinterpreted what is shown in the video. The pressure gauge in the video is NOT indicating air pressure, but rather the water pressure. The water pressure increases because the change from water to ice increases in volume and water is an incompressible liquid. As the water turns to ice, the water pressure inside the pipe that is not freezing increases as is shown in the video.

However, I strongly disagree with his conclusion. He says that the increase in volume of the water turning to ice isn't what bursts the pipe. But it most definitely is because that is what causes the increased water pressure. If you take what he says literally, if you can freeze the entire pipe all at once, the pipe will not burst because the pipe can withstand the change in volume when the water turns to ice. That is totally STUPID.

And as I and TomFOhio and Twowaxhack said, allowing water to flow brings in warmer water from the underground main and keeps the pipes above 32 degrees. The colder it is, and the longer the cold spell is, the more water is needed to keep the lines from freezing.

We are not "know-it-alls", but rather professionals with knowledge we try to spread to the ignorant on plumbing issues.
 
Thanks MicED69. I've never been called an know-it-all before on this site or any other. Its no wonder that so many good plumbers
have left this site.
 

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