A thought triggered by the recent Texas freeze... · 9:13pm Feb 16th, 2021
In order to prevent pipes freezing and bursting, I had several faucets, including all three of my outdoor faucets, running from Saturday night through now.
I awoke yesterday morning to find an inch of snow outside, as I might have mentioned. (It's melting now- the temp got as high as 38 today.) The pipes did not freeze (and still haven't, partly thanks to my luck in not being among the rolling blackouts).
And for half the distance from one faucet to the one on the edge of the yard, there was a line in the snow where you could see bare ground, marking the underground pipe linking the two faucets.
My first thought upon seeing it: I knew I was on to something when I had the castaways bury water pipes and use them to thaw the ground in the cave.
Got any pics?
Exactly how shallow are your pipes buried? Here they're over 6 feet in the ground.
5455391 Of the snow in general, yes. Of the bare patches I mentioned, no, because they weren't all that impressive.
5455398 Only about a foot or so. Bear in mind I live in a subtropical climate, on well water, and that pretty much all the plumbing here began as do-it-yourself stuff by my grandfather and then my father.
I'm from Quebec, winter here mean days that can get in 0-negative F, so freezing pipes is a possibility in winter like for a countryside shack...
I think you've earned this for that:
i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/004/128/BRILLIANT_.jpg
Water sure makes a dandy thermal regulator, doesn't it?
5455407
The do it yourself stuff I can understand. If I owned a company operating in that climate however, I'd still bury them like 6 feet deep, purely to protect them from damage. Just driving over the lawn with a vehicle, or a heavy tree landing on the ground could damage them at only 1 foot deep. Heck at only 1 foot down tree roots could rupture them given enough time.
Always nice to be proven right.
You were lucky for sure. Curse you windigoes
Of all the pipes in my house, the one to go was the only one we couldn't constantly push water through, that being the one that filled the toilet reservoir with fresh water.
So it burst today at the strangest time (when we were all out of the house, and while water was running everywhere else, and after the power came back on) but that means we had to shut the water off til tommorow when dad gets off work to fix it.
Yay.
I live in northeastern Montana on a ranch in a trailer house, my faucets have been dripping since November. It’s currently -6 now, which is actually a warm spell for here, last week it was -46 with -60 windchill.
5455731 Yeah no, thanks very much, I'll stick with the hurricanes if it's all the same to you.
In my experience, if moving water in an underground pipe is enough to melt snow on the surface you have bigger problems than snow.
Yikes, those are some shallow pipes. On the other hand, I had to get my water and sewer main replaced and it was eleven feet down. Goodbye front and back lawn.
Oh, hey, I think I remember that happening once at our house when I was a kid. :)
5455598
6 feet down they can still get mangled I haven't heard of it happening to water pipes but I've had a couple friends have to replace sewage pipes due to invasive roots.
As for the heating with water pipes there are places use steam/hot water heating under their sidewalks to keep them snow free. You can do it with electricity too but I find that to be way less cool.
5456111 but I find that to be way less cool
...........................
... no comment necessary, I trust.
5456459
it was unintentional, I swear
Come to Arizona -:D