Preventing Frozen Pipes

Factual Questions
1

I’m leaving town for a few days, and will miss a very, very cold Christmas morning here in Dayton. The forecast low for Friday night/Saturday morning is -14 °F (-25 °C)

I normally wouldn’t be worried about it, because if I were home, I’d just leave a faucet dripping overnight. But I don’t think that leaving a dripping tap on for several days is a very good idea, especially if it’s moving enough water to do any good. ($$$!!)

So here’s the specifics on the house: It’s a brick ranch that sits on a slab; there’s no crawlspace, no basement. Built in 1960, with copper plumbing throughout. The main cold line enters, I believe, through the concrete blocks between the subfloor and the slab, and is completely inaccessible until it rises in a utility closet. After that, the plumbing is all concentrated in the center of the house, where the laundry, kitchen, and both bathrooms share the same couple of walls. In short, any plumbing I can get to is already in a warm part of the house, except for the two outside (freezeproof) faucets, which have pipes in the exterior walls. Therefore, heat tape or other insulation is really not an option. It’s not like exposed pipes in a basement or attic.

I’ve heard that draining the plumbing is a foolproof means of freeze-proofing, but I don’t know if that would help me. The only water shutoff I know of is right where the main cold water line rises out of the ground in the utility closet. All downstream pipes are in warm parts of the house, so emptying them would do little good.

Do I even need to worry? If the pipes I can’t get to are buried under the floor, are they likely to freeze? Should I still let a faucet drip for a few days? After all, the cost of some wasted water is cheap insurance against burst pipes. But that depends on wheter it’s effective or necessary.

2

It’s probably something of an acquired skill, but you can guage the freeze risk associated with your pipes but running the water across your hand when you first open a faucet. If the water is room temperature, then gets colder (a LOT colder), then gets warmer you might want to figure out where the cold slug of water is forming and insulate that… and/or only leave the at-risk faucets dripping.

From what you’ve described, it sounds like they designed the house with freeze protection in mind.

3

Sounds like your home is well suited for this weather.

Of course it would depend upon the size of the drop, but a drip of one per second will result in roughly 7 gallons per day. You may not need to drip, but if you do, you won’t have to skip the trip to McD’s. Supersizing might be out though.:smiley:

4

Well, you are probably ok. You might want to leave the heat alone, and leave it as if you were there. Don’t even back it down to 60. The air in the walls won’t be 60!

Opening cabinet doors and getting warm air to move anywhere there are pipes is a good idea.

For example, I have a bathroom next to a garage, and the pipes get pretty darn close to the cold garage. I open the cabinet doors when it is bitter outside and I leave that bathroom door open.

You might seek a neighbor to pop by and check the furnace and run some taps.

5

Perhaps you could close the valve at the street (at the water meter) and leave all of the faucets in the house open? (Don’t forget to open the garden hose bibcocks)