# Canadians: How Do You Stop Your Water Pipes Freezing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2014, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756 "2014-06-01T08:18:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/21 "2014-06-02T00:35:33Z")
My parents told me to do a load of laundry at least once a day during the coldest times of the year to prevent the pipes from freezing. Not sure how scientific this is. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/22 "2014-06-02T01:06:19Z")
What **Polar Iceman** and **FluffyBob** said. My parent’s house didn’t have one, but my last house had technology apparently called an [anti-freeze valve](http://www.rona.ca/en/brass-straight-anti-freeze-valve-0173104--1) for the exterior faucet. (Basically the actual valve is ~1’ inside the house, so the water isn’t going to burst it). Never had a problem with my parent’s, other than it wouldn’t work for a while until it got somewhat warm. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/23 "2014-06-02T01:18:10Z")
Minnesotan here- another vote for basements and pipes in interior walls and below the frost lane. Rather than crawl spaces basements are almost universal here (you have to dig down deep for the foundations anyway so you might as well excavate the whole thing). Even if they’re not finished and heated as living space they’re not insulated from the house itself so they’re always warm enough that they’re well above freezing. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/24 "2014-06-04T04:24:08Z")
Than you everyone, this is a really interesting discussion. I am in the southern part of New Zealand in a region called Central Otago. It has dry air, sunshine, and snow plus mountains and lakes. Winter night temperatures of -6 C are normal. However that isn’t cold in North American terms. One of my reasons for posting is I wonder if our plumbers here are up to speed. Burst pipes are not unusual. ---
**Author:** ![Oglomott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oglomott/32/3543_2.png) [@Oglomott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oglomott)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/25 "2014-06-04T09:57:01Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Others have already mentioned insulation and heating. Another big step is circulation. When you know the temperature is going to be low, you leave the water running on a trickle in a bathtub or sink. That way the water keeps moving and can’t freeze in place. If the water doesn’t freeze because it’s moving, then how does Niagara Falls freeze? It’s moving like hell! ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/26 "2014-06-04T11:36:58Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Just thought of something - our pipes are not enclosed in exterior walls. They’re in interior walls, or in the case of the kitchen, come up from the basement directly to the sink, free-standing. Either way, the pipes are at the same temperature as the rest of the house. > > It bemused when when I’ve been in Ireland or the UK and have seen pipes on the outside walls, exposed to the elements. The only pipes you will have seen are the drains from the roof gutters or the waste water outlets. Main water pipes are all under the frost line and come up inside the house. Basements are not that common here, and most new houses have solid floors with no crawl space. A recent problem has been with condensing boilers which are the most popular these days. They have to have an outlet for the condensate and many plumbers installed them with the outlet through the wall. Because it is only a trickle, in cold weather it isn’t long before it starts to freeze and eventually block, causing the boiler to shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/27 "2014-06-04T13:08:58Z")
My municipal water works comes by every fall and installs a dummy water meter in the place of my standard meter. This is because of the age of my house (1880’s), and the placement of the water pipes (they’re too high - above the frost line). Before we worked this agreement out, they used to employ an electromagnetic locating device to determine the location of the ice blockage, and had always found that the blockage was in the portion of line that they are responsible for (outboard of my water shutoff valve). I believe they have determined that it’s cheaper to give me free water for the winter rather than replacing the lines from the water main. So in my case, I keep my pipes from freezing by slowly running a tap, as other posters have suggested. Unfortunately, this winter was so severe that even a dribbling tap wasn’t enough to keep the water watery. I came home from work one day to find the pipes frozen, even though my dummy meter switch was complete and I was running water. The water company came back out, and they were not happy. I was instructed to damn conservation, and run the tap half open until April. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/28 "2014-06-04T13:14:03Z")
> [@Oglomott](#): > > If the water doesn’t freeze because it’s moving, then how does Niagara Falls freeze? It’s moving like hell! It almost never does (once or twice in recorded history, depending on how you count it). It has to get apocalyptically cold and stay there for a while. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/29 "2014-06-04T16:14:59Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > We do not heat buildings/houses, in the North American sense. If nobody is at home or even overnight, heating is at a minimum. I had the woodburner hot last night and the electric underfloor heating on overnight and nevertheless the pipes froze. My heat is turned way down during the day when no one is home and also overnight, but the air in my house still doesn’t drop below freezing. Even when we had a furnace problem and had no heat for a couple of days, the temperature didn’t get that low. By “heating is at a minimum” do you mean that you don’t heat the whole house, only the rooms in use at the time? I suppose that could be part of the issue- parts of my house ( basement, front porch and the downstairs bathroom ) are not actually heated , but are all adjacent to heated spaces so that even the unheated spaces stay above freezing ( and the basement also has the heat thrown off by the oil burner) If I only heated the living room in the evening and the upstairs overnight for an extended period of time, it’s possible that the downstairs bathroom pipes would freeze. It does get cold enough here for pipes to freeze- but it’s virtually always in an empty house which isn’t being heated at all or else a outdoor hose connection that wasn’t turned off indoors at the start of winter. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/30 "2014-06-04T16:54:50Z")
So an older fellow walked into my office to complain about a water bill and look into suing the town. He showed me a notice from the town told residents to keep tap running at a trickle for the winter so as to avoid pipes freezing. Then he showed me his water bill for the winter: over $6,000 CDN. Moral of the story: when trickling, don’t overdo it. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/31 "2014-06-04T17:13:03Z")
I grew up in rural MN and had never heard of pipes freezing until I moved to Chicago. I always assumed it was because the house I grew up in had been insulated better. I just now realized it was probably because I grew up with private well water with pipes that entered the house through the cellar floor. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/32 "2014-06-04T19:15:03Z")
recent city water problems i think is that the water mains are below normal frost depth in native soil. roadways have compacted soil which freezes deeper. this past winter being much colder for many thoroughly froze the ground around these water mains. ---
**Author:** ![bandit76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bandit76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bandit76)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/33 "2014-06-04T19:50:27Z")
…always keeping a small trinkle running and adding some insulation around the pipes. Adding a small heater in the area concerned is always a good option as well. Or do you mean, keep feeding drinks to your wife, eventually she’ll keep your pipe warm?:smack: LOL(no puns intended) ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/34 "2014-06-05T03:32:12Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > Minnesotan here- another vote for basements and pipes in interior walls and below the frost lane. :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack: I’ve seen many times on TV houses in the south hit by tornadoes where they were built on flat slabs… I’ve been to places like Texas and seen everything built on flat ground. I’ve always wondered why basements were almost never found there, and only _today_ have I realized why up here you _have_ to have one. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/35 "2014-06-05T03:48:03Z")
Yeah, there are no heat tracers or anything like that; pipes come into the basement below the frost line, and are distributed through internal walls. No mystery really. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/36 "2014-06-05T11:59:22Z")
> [@Nanoda](#): > > :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack: > > I’ve seen many times on TV houses in the south hit by tornadoes where they were built on flat slabs… I’ve been to places like Texas and seen everything built on flat ground. I’ve always wondered why basements were almost never found there, and only _today_ have I realized why up here you _have_ to have one. No, we do not have to have basements to keep our pipes from freezing. It costs less to bury a pipe and run it up through the frost zone in an insulated conduit than it does to dig a basement. We have basements to avoid frost heaving problems. When water in the soil freezes, it expands, and a when it thaws, it contracts, making it an extremely poor base for building upon. In southern climes where there is no frost, a concrete slab will suffice for a foundation. Here where there is frost, the foundation must go down a few feet to get below the frost line, and since it is less expensive to dig a hole and line it with foundation walls than to dig a hole and fill it with concrete, we tend to set out homes on crawl spaces or basements. Basements are more popular than crawl spaces because although it does not cost much more to make a full basement if you already have to make a crawl space, a basement offers living space whereas a crawl space at best only offers very limited storage and is miserable to move around in. There are other alternatives when trying to build where there is frost in the winters. One is to dig a hole and fill it with something (commonly gravel) that will provide a buffer come winter. A lot of commercial buildings are built this way. If the buffer is not sufficient, the floor of the building heaves, as has happened to one of our local Canadian Tire buildings. Walking about in it is like walking in a carnival fun house. Another alternative is to drive pilings down well below the frost line and build on the pilings rather than on the ground. This is often used when building office towers and cottages. I live in a ski chalet that was built this way: it has no ground floor, and is essentially a building slung from posts. Water pipes enter from underneath the building, and enough heat is held in by the building’s skirt keep it warm enough under the building to prevent the pipes from freezing even when the temperature is down where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet, but even then, a skirt would not be necessary if instead an insulated conduit for the pipe were to be used. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/37 "2014-06-05T14:12:39Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > It bemused when when I’ve been in Ireland or the UK and have seen pipes on the outside walls, exposed to the elements. Ha! Travel to Australia and you’ll find not only pipes but entire hot water systems on the outside of their houses. Note that no Aussies have joined the conversation. As for Ireland/UK I think we have exactly the same colonial attitude in NZ to plumbing. As a child I remember the water pipes freezing on the farm. We just accepted it and by afternoon the water was flowing. In NZ only commercial buildings have basements. Many/most kiwis won’t even know what I’m talking about because they live in benign warm regions. Modern houses here are built on concrete slabs with waste pipes built in. The water inlets and reticulation are normally in the outside walls and in the ceiling which makes them semi-accessible but vulnerable. FYI we have just spent a few thousand dollars repairing internal walls and installing a new shower in the en-suite because of a slow leak caused by frost. Its irritating especially since insurance called it wear and tear. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/38 "2014-06-05T14:42:48Z")
In Canada’s north where there is permafrost, buildings tend to be built on pilings, for if the building rests directly on the ground, it will melt the permafrost and the building will sink. Similarly, water and sewer pipes often are housed in above-ground insulated conduit that is laid over pilings ([an above ground utilidor](http://inuvik.ca/wp-content/gallery/photogallery/P8080017.jpg)). ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756/39 "2014-06-05T16:13:20Z")
maple syrup is a great anti-freeze [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-how-do-you-stop-your-water-pipes-freezing/689756.md?page=1)