Another Frozen Pipe Story

michael_15

I thought I'd post this because, well, perhaps some of you might find it amusing.

I purchased my house last summer, so this is my first winter. It's been especially cold this winter, and the pipes in the back half of my house froze.

Well, peering behind the cabinets, I found that the pipes were bolted to the wall (which means no room for pipe wrap). Oh well. I figured I'd get a plumber to move the pipes away from the wall soon. In the meantime, I left the faucet dripping. I felt mighty clever about that.

In any case, on a particularly cold day, I came home to find the sink half full of water. Apparently, the dripping was slow enough that the water froze while running down the drain pipe. So my drain pipe froze, too.

Well, then, I thought, I would just turn off the supply valves to the back of my house, temporarily give up on having running water in the kitchen, and leave the taps wide open. So I went to the supply valve and found it. . . already closed. Apparently, it's broken.

No problem, I thought, I'll forgo water in even more taps and turn off an earlier supply valve. Of course, I found that the upstream supply valve was, well, broken as well.

In frustration, I tried all of the supply valves in my basement. There are about a dozen. Two of them work -- the water main, and a brand new one that leads to an outdoor faucet.

Which leaves me in the current situation of turning off the water main and having no running water at all. Boy, I can't wait for the plumber to show up.

-Michael

ScottMP

Micheal

Letting the pipes drip, as you found out, can sometime be worse than the problem.

I had a renter who after the third freeze, decided to let the water drip at night. After every freeze up we told him, "You have to insulate these pipes " , "Listen, really, these pipes back here need insulation and fix this door " , " WHAT IS THE PROBLEM, BUY SOME INSULATION ".

SO he decided to let the pipes drip. The cast iron soil pipe ran down the hill about 100 yards and was exposed half of that.

You got it..... the whole 4" line was filled with water.

He moved out.

Scott

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