Question about house stuff...

C

cutiepie21

O.G.
May 15, 2006
2,257
1
#1
I just moved to a state where it gets below freezing at night, typically around 22-25 degrees during the wintertime.

My dad is afraid that when it gets this cold, the water in the pipes will freeze, causing them to crack or burst, and thus flooding the house when the water unfreezes. He wants me to leave a sink running slowly at night to prevent this.

My question is: is it really necessary? I can understand if it's a really old home and the pipes don't have sufficient insulation, but the home I'm living in is only 15 years old. Maybe I'll ask my neighbors and see if they leave their faucets running at night.

I guess there's no harm in doing it if it gives him peace of mind...

Do any of you do this?
 
#2
Are your pipes located indoors or outdoors?

If they are indoors and you have the heat on, they will be fine. If you leave on vacation, keep your thermostat set on at least 50 or 55 degrees.

If they are outdoors (like an external pipe running around the house for a garden hose or something like that), you should turn off the water supply to the pipe. You're not going to need external watering when it's below freezing anyway!;)
 
#6
If your house is as new as you say, typically, the ordinance will tell them to bury the pipes to a certain depth to prevent freezing and cracking. Also, any time they exit the ground, they should be insulated. Inside the walls, they should be fine too.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it....especially if your house is plumbed with PEX.
 
#7
My kitchen sink is on an exterior wall (unlike my bathrooms which are all interior). Whenever it gets down in the teens or 20s here in the Seattle area (rare, but we just had a major cold spell) I open my cupboards to let the warm air from my house circulate under the sink and I do leave the water on a tiny trickle on a combo of both the cold and hot water so both pipes keep circulating.

It might be overkill, but it's good peace of mind, at least in my part of the country where we don't routinely get super severe cold temps or snow.
 
#8
My house was built in 1897, and recently it got as low as -9ºC here. Nothing happened, and I didn't do anything differently. So long as your house is warm, and you've run any excess water from any outside taps then you should be fine.
 
#9
I used to live in a duplex that was about 15- 20 years old and we had a major snow and ice storm. It was very cold. I woke up to find that my living room was soaked with water. The maintenance person came over and said the pipe broke outside from the cold and caused the flooding inside. Had to move out eventually. They did not dry the carpet well and it molded and they would not fix it.
 
#10
I lived in Canada (where it is currently -55) and we never had a pipe freeze. However, we now live in Indiana and have had a pipe freeze. It was our kitchen sink that is against an outside wall and it was well below 0.

IMO, I wouldn't worry too much about it at 22-25 degrees. If you have a sink that is against an outside wall then you could take those precautions just to be sure!
 
#11
I thought I could share astory reg pipes. This is in a fairly cold climate, but no one ever lets the pipes run, but usually simply let the heating stay on a certain level even when no one is present.

I think this was right after the wII My great grand parents were renting a house to a very nice couple. He was a native to the area, while she was from Argentina, a much hotter climate. Both were of a certain age, and sadly, as is the way of nature, he dies years before his wife. She returns to Argentina, but still wants to rent the house to visit family that stayed.

Unfortunately, she wasen't well aware of domestic procedures even after many years in the cold climat, because one bright spring day neighbours discovered watr running out of the front door. She had shut off all heating and left for argentine during the winter, leaving the water in the pipes to freeze and expand ruining both the plumbing and the house. :faint:
 
#12
I think if you keep your house warm, there should be no need to do anything about your pipes, but if makes you feel better, you can open up your cabinet doors at night to let some house heat into your cabinet space. I would make sure all my outside hose faucets were drained, though....that could be a problem.
 
#13
Wow I never heard of this!

I've lived in the snow belt where it's below freezing at night 4-6 months of the year.

I thought this only happened in power outages and when the home wasn't occupied and heat turned off.
 
#14
gro3602 said:
Wow I never heard of this!

I've lived in the snow belt where it's below freezing at night 4-6 months of the year.

I thought this only happened in power outages and when the home wasn't occupied and heat turned off.
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing too (I grew up in the prairies of Canada), but here in IN it is apparently common for pipes along outside walls to freeze. We actually had it happen in our semi-new house (8 years old) and another house that had a bathroom built with 3 outside walls and a crawl space below the floor.
 
#15
i just watched a thing on tv this morning that said DO NOT let your water run continuously to prevent the pipes from freezing. they said this could cause them to build up and freeze.

as long as you keep your house at it's normal temp and don't let it get too low then you shoudln't have a problem.

at my part time job we have a problem with pipes freezing in the bathrooms only because the doors are generally closed all the time and the temperature is lowered in the building over night (since no one is there). all we have to do is prop open the doors at night so that the air circulates and we have no problems.
 
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