IT’S FREEZING
I thought it might be a good time to discuss something that affects most of us at one time or another in this part of the State; frozen water pipes. It’s a situation I think most of us have had happen to us at least once, which is usually all it takes and then we make sure it never happens again. The root cause goes back a long time.
A long, long, time ago the Supreme Creator, or Evolution depending on where you stand on that issue, came up with freezing water. A little while later that same entity came up with freezing of water lines, which didn’t really go over all that well until Roman times and the Romans invented the water pipe. Then we had something the water could freeze in and really do some damage.
Water is one of the few substances that expands as it freezes. If it didn’t have this characteristic we’d have a much different earth than we have. The freezing and thawing is what breaks up large rocks into smaller rocks and smaller rocks into sand. So without the expansion of freezing water we may not have dirt and without dirt we’d be a much different world.
The water system in your home is a closed system. The water comes in from the street or from your well holding tank and passes a check valve. This valve only allows the water to flow one way. It can flow towards your house but not back. This keeps dirty, polluted water from being able to get back into the communal system which could cause all the water to become dirty or polluted. So once it’s past this valve your water is trapped and it can’t get out unless someone opens a faucet somewhere. Now usually the pipes are insulated if they are exposed to the cold. In older homes where the water lines are run under the house they can be left uninsulated as long as no floor insulation is installed, the heat coming down through the floor is enough to keep them from freezing.
TYPICAL PIPE FREEZE
A lot of the frozen water pipe situations I have seen in the past have a remarkably similar set of circumstances to them.
As an example: It’s the middle of winter, with windy days and cold clear nights. A local family decide they don’t like the wind and cold so they arrange to go somewhere warm for a long week end. The night after they leave the wind blows a bit harder than usual and blows through the eve vents and blows the insulation away from a water line that runs right by one of the eve vents. Usually this wouldn’t matter, but since the people have gone there is no water moving through the line and the water just sitting in the pipe is much more prone to freezing. And it happens. And it mostly seems to happen at a fitting, and usually where it is stamped “Made in China”. The stamping is too deep and I’ve seen several frozen fittings that have burst right where the name has been stamped into the casting. So, anyway, the pipe bursts in the attic and it runs at about 7 gallons per minute, if no one is home that’s 420 gallons in an hour and 10,080 gallons in 24 hours. At first the insulation soaks it up. For some reason this usually seems to happen over the room with the most expensive electronics in it; and now the ceiling starts to come down. And the water runs until you return 3 days later or until a neighbor finally notices water running out from under the front door and down the driveway and down the street. And you will return to one of the most horrible messes you can imagine.
The point here is that this will only happen to you once because once it does you will take the steps in the future to make sure it does not happen again. Pipe insulation is very cheap and easy to install. Also most building supply stores sell little cups that go over the outside faucets so you won’t have to worry about them. If you install floor insulation make sure you also insulate the pipes which are now not getting the warmth from the house. Another trick is to leave the water running at just a trickle during a freeze.
Because when you get home and your home is a complete swamp, and the ceiling is on the floor covering your computer and your new flat screen T.V., and you go to your insurance company to collect on that homeowners insurance, whose premiums are more than the house payment, they are probably going to tell you that you are not covered for acts of the Supreme Creator or Evolution depending on where you stand on that issue.
I thought it might be a good time to discuss something that affects most of us at one time or another in this part of the State; frozen water pipes. It’s a situation I think most of us have had happen to us at least once, which is usually all it takes and then we make sure it never happens again. The root cause goes back a long time.
A long, long, time ago the Supreme Creator, or Evolution depending on where you stand on that issue, came up with freezing water. A little while later that same entity came up with freezing of water lines, which didn’t really go over all that well until Roman times and the Romans invented the water pipe. Then we had something the water could freeze in and really do some damage.
Water is one of the few substances that expands as it freezes. If it didn’t have this characteristic we’d have a much different earth than we have. The freezing and thawing is what breaks up large rocks into smaller rocks and smaller rocks into sand. So without the expansion of freezing water we may not have dirt and without dirt we’d be a much different world.
The water system in your home is a closed system. The water comes in from the street or from your well holding tank and passes a check valve. This valve only allows the water to flow one way. It can flow towards your house but not back. This keeps dirty, polluted water from being able to get back into the communal system which could cause all the water to become dirty or polluted. So once it’s past this valve your water is trapped and it can’t get out unless someone opens a faucet somewhere. Now usually the pipes are insulated if they are exposed to the cold. In older homes where the water lines are run under the house they can be left uninsulated as long as no floor insulation is installed, the heat coming down through the floor is enough to keep them from freezing.
TYPICAL PIPE FREEZE
A lot of the frozen water pipe situations I have seen in the past have a remarkably similar set of circumstances to them.
As an example: It’s the middle of winter, with windy days and cold clear nights. A local family decide they don’t like the wind and cold so they arrange to go somewhere warm for a long week end. The night after they leave the wind blows a bit harder than usual and blows through the eve vents and blows the insulation away from a water line that runs right by one of the eve vents. Usually this wouldn’t matter, but since the people have gone there is no water moving through the line and the water just sitting in the pipe is much more prone to freezing. And it happens. And it mostly seems to happen at a fitting, and usually where it is stamped “Made in China”. The stamping is too deep and I’ve seen several frozen fittings that have burst right where the name has been stamped into the casting. So, anyway, the pipe bursts in the attic and it runs at about 7 gallons per minute, if no one is home that’s 420 gallons in an hour and 10,080 gallons in 24 hours. At first the insulation soaks it up. For some reason this usually seems to happen over the room with the most expensive electronics in it; and now the ceiling starts to come down. And the water runs until you return 3 days later or until a neighbor finally notices water running out from under the front door and down the driveway and down the street. And you will return to one of the most horrible messes you can imagine.
The point here is that this will only happen to you once because once it does you will take the steps in the future to make sure it does not happen again. Pipe insulation is very cheap and easy to install. Also most building supply stores sell little cups that go over the outside faucets so you won’t have to worry about them. If you install floor insulation make sure you also insulate the pipes which are now not getting the warmth from the house. Another trick is to leave the water running at just a trickle during a freeze.
Because when you get home and your home is a complete swamp, and the ceiling is on the floor covering your computer and your new flat screen T.V., and you go to your insurance company to collect on that homeowners insurance, whose premiums are more than the house payment, they are probably going to tell you that you are not covered for acts of the Supreme Creator or Evolution depending on where you stand on that issue.
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