Sunny and 15ºF up here by the beach. A few years ago the bathtub drain froze. I thought it was hair-clogged, but eventually I figured it out. I’ve been a little worried about that. I got in the shower today and the drain was working (knock wood), but… There’s no cold water. Fortunately I have a low-flow shower head, so I was able to shower at the far end of the tub without being scalded.
As I got out of the shower I noticed the toilet was a little low. I gave it a flush. Nope. The tank was empty. Incoming water pipe is frozen. I filled it up with hot water from the deep sink (cold water there was frozen too). Found out the deep sink’s drain was frozen.
I’ve got a space heater set to 80º in the bathroom. I’m about to go out to get winter weight oil put in the Jeep, so I’ll have to turn the heater off. I think I’ll see if they make any heated wraps for pipes to see if I can get some water flowing. In the meantime I’ll have to go to the laundromat to do my laundry, try not to get scalded showering, and hope the tub and toilet drains don’t freeze.
At least you’re not on the other side of the Cascades – it was -18F when I woke up this morning, and hasn’t gotten above 0 today – and won’t until tomorrow, if we’re lucky. At least part of that might be location specific and due to a weather phenomenon I had never heard of until I moved here – something like “temperature inversion”, in which the cold air settles on the valley floors, such that it’s actually warmer up in the mountains.
I’m just glad that this area didn’t get hammered with snow and ice the way Spokane and areas east did…
We’re having those days when the skies are clear and blue and the sun is shining intensely. You look out the window and think “nice!” Then you go outside into the sun and quickly discover it’s approximately 1,000 degrees below zero, with wind-chill. Did a hole open up connecting us directly with space or something? How can the sun shine and it still be so frickin’ cold?
Maybe it’s time for a call to a plumber. Not for a fix, but to get suggestions for thawing your pipes. Our outside faucet froze up a couple years ago. We’d left the hose hooked up, undrained. :smack: When it thawed, a pipe burst. Not gushing burst, but slow leaking burst. Ruined a bunch of books.
All I know for sure is that you’re not supposed to apply heat directly to your pipes. But I wonder if a slow drip of warm water into your drains would help. Or wrapping something around the pipes.
It’s 5 degrees here, forecast high of 2 for tomorrow, but the hose is unhooked and the pipes closest to the outside walls are wrapped in foam.
It occurred to me that this house has that plastic pipe that’s supposed to expand instead of burst. So even if I had heat tape, plastic is a poor conductor of heat.
As I passed the bathroom I heard running water. Whaddya know? The cold water was running in the tub! I’ve been keeping the space heater at 75º in the bathroom since yesterday. I don’t know if the heat finally worked its way down to the stoppage, or if it’s because it’s warmer today (24º) and heat from the house got to it, or a combination of both. I haven’t tried the toilet yet to see if the incoming water is also thawed.
I did check the deep sink cold water tap. No joy. And the drain is still frozen. I went to Rite-Aid while my clothes were at the laundromat and bought one of those immersion heaters for keeping your hot drink hot. I put that into the deep sink drain. It will take a while to heat the standing water, but I’m hoping the warmth will make its way to the frozen bit. The drain goes into the wall. The other side of the wall is the smallest bedroom. When telecommuting last week I worked from the couch because it’s warmer. It’s been like 40º in that room. Today I turned on one of the radiator-style space heaters. It’s comfortable in there now. (I think the reason I was so cold trying to work in there is that the computer is right next to the single-glazed windows,) I’m hoping that some of the heat will make it to the pipe in the wall and that that will help thaw the clog.
It’s still snowing here, and quite pretty. If only the pipes would thaw…
Hopefully plumbing issues will resolve as weather changes. BTW, we laid in the sun today and Mr. B even swam. Our mountains are still covered with snow but the desert itself has warmed into the 60s. Come back south anytime!
The thermostat in my 93 Festiva has given out. But, I have been too lazy and short on money to replace it. Today I tied a piece of cardboard around the radiator to keep the engine temp at a reasonable operating temperature. It is working pretty well.
I know you west coasters aren’t used to this kind of stuff. I’m in Wisconsin where we have to expect this kind of cold. It isn’t pleasant for anyone. I hope your pipes haven’t been damaged from freezing. The expansion can cause them to burst. Best of Luck Johnny L.A.
My friend (from whom I bought the house) had the old plumbing replaced with some sort of plastic piping that’s supposed to expand instead of burst. I hope such is the case.
As of this morning the deep sink drain was clear. So everything appears to be back to normal.
It was about 20 below this morning with the wind chill. On Saturday night, when I had to take home my friend with cerebral palsy and his 6-year-old daughter and rescue my mom’s car (which she left in the supermarket parking lot before leaving for 5 days in Florida, which was a fraking idiotic place to leave it, but I digress), I doscovered that my windshield wipers didn’t work at. all.
I drove very slowly to drop off my friend (he couldn’t very well walk home, and his wife, who would normally come get him, was sick in bed). The we went to get my mom’s car. No scraper, no shovel, and just about no gas in her car. Sigh. We got it back to the street in front of the apartment, where I proceeded to try to back it into the half-plowed parking spot, hoping it wouldn’t run out of gas in the interim.
That was when the car died, and wouldn’t start again, no matter what I did. I finally gave up, and prayed that a) nobody would ticket her for sticking out into the street a bit, and b) went inside and called Mom to chew her out for having no scraper, no shovel, no gas, and a huge crack all across the bottom of her windshield. It’s just plain not safe to drive like that in these conditions. She swore that she had a quarter of a tank of gas (which she absolutely did not; the tank showed just above empty), and that “the battery is fine; it just needs to be jumped” (two phrases that really don’t go together).
I am not going outside to jump her car in 20 below zero, and I’m not driving anywhere but to the mechanic until my wipers work again.
Mr. Neville noticed, as we were going to bed at 12:30 last night, that the window behind our bed felt colder than normal. We have a thermostat in our upstairs hall that shows the outside temperature as well as inside. He got up, and it was 8 degrees outside. That meant we had to leave our bathroom sink dripping all night (the previous owners told us to do that when it’s colder than 15 to keep the pipes from freezing).
Not only that, but I had to put on a coat over my nightshirt and go to our neighbors’ house. They have a house just like ours (it’s fairly common in our area of Pittsburgh to have two identical or very similar houses next door to each other). They’re in Europe, and I am looking in on their cat. I went over and set their faucet to dripping, too.
I looked it up this morning. It was colder here than it was in Moscow, Russia. Who’s up for a wintertime invasion of Russia, so we can get warm? I need to find my furry hat that I got in Prague a few years ago…
Pretty snow. Pretty, pretty snow. Sitting there waiting for Christmas. When it finally warms up enough to melt all at once, just like last year. Look for the news reports on the Flood of '08 by around Saturday at the latest.
Just don’t forget it’s there when spring comes. That one cost me a head gasket.
