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Frozen pipes?

No idea where this was or what happened but sure looks good

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Reply to
Ed Pawlowski
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Never go away from home for more than a couple days.

Reply to
micky

  1. That's beautiful
  2. I'm glad it's not my house

I expect our rain chain will have a nice ice formation on it by Wednesday.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
angelicapaganelli

A friend who goes to Texas every winter drains his pipes and shuts off the water before leaving. Last year he did as usual. Shut off the main shutoff, open the upstairs bathroom tap,and open the "drain" valve at the bottom of the system. He put a bucket under the drain and left for Texas right after christmas.

He checked his jan water bill on line and found he had a $2000+ water bill - OH SHIT!!!!

He called me and had me check in the basement. Thankfully the floor drain worked. He had just "finished" the laundry room with Dri-Cor and carpet tiles The tiles were saturated but very little damage. Running the wet vac for a few hours and the de-humidifier for a weekgot it all dried out - I worked the main shutoff until it finally sealed and he had a new valve installed when he got back home. There was enough water went through his celar drain to fill his pool numerous times - -

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Reply to
Clare Snyder

How could he have used any water if the main was shut off?

Reply to
Wade Garrett

Easy. He closed the vale but it did not shut off. Happens.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

We have this problem with our main valve. If we need to work on the lines, we put a 5 gal bucket under the drain valve. The drip will fill the bucket in about 30 minutes.

Getting the city to shut line at street so we can replace the valve is a major pain, so we live with it.

Reply to
Anonymous

Do that here and you'll come home to cracked plaster and likely foundation too. His furnace gets set to just below 50F

His did the yrar before too - and every year for the last 10

Happened in my younger brother's 2 story house with finished basement. Upstairs bathroom. Less than 3 hours. Over $60,000 damage.

The day before he went in for hip surgery this spring he had a water leak through the kitchen ceiling. Plaster. He had me come over and open the ceiling to locate the leak. It was above an island cupboard so I had to remove it too. Found out the copper sewer stack had corroded through and had been leaking for quite some time. The damage was extensive. The restoration company the insurance company uses was not anxious for the job and gave him a 4 month target. The plumber fixed the stack (after I also opened the bedroom wall upstairs to gain access to the piping)

I ended up spending about 3 weeks tearing out the saturated plaster ceiling, replacing it with 2 layers of drywall to match the thickness, and building some new cupboards - then sanding and refinishing all the rest of the cabinets. The insurance company gave him a cash settlement that covered the entire renovation including buying him a nice new table saw. The original kitchen (like the rest of the house) appeared to have been built by a relatively competent barn bulder - - - -

Reply to
Clare Snyder

Just plugging the floor drain would have had water running out the cellar windows or flooding the main floor. Thankfully the drain DID work - and was within 6 feet of the pipe drain.

Reply to
Clare Snyder

The shutoff valve was defective and did not fully shut off - obviously.

Reply to
Clare Snyder

Ahh, never thought of that...

Reply to
Wade Garrett

But supposedly he also left a low drain point in the system open. If it was flowing that much, you'd think it would be obvious that the valve was not fully closed, unless he just closed the main, opened the drain and left. Total amateur hour.

Reply to
trader_4

Evidently you live in a warm climate. Up north the vale was usually at least 48" down. At my last house, I have a rough idea where it was, but it was under the lawn, buried many years ago. Just finding the access would be a problem.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Mine is about 5 feet down and is a "hydrant" - it opens a drain toi the house side whenthe valve is shut off. It has a telescopic handlethat comes up to street level - it is in my lawn and the top is somewhere between 2 inches and a foot below sod level (it drops over the years) I know where it is within a foot or so. The water crew comes with a metaldetector to l,ocate it and a round "core shovel" to remove the sod to get to it (and usually they jack it back to surface hight with a jack and chain)

Reply to
Clare Snyder

Yes, there is. But what happens when it does not completely close after years of not being operated. It leaks.

Reply to
Anonymous

What length of pipe were you able to cover with the dry ice ? Our valve is very close to the wall where main enters the basement.

Reply to
Anonymous
[snip]

At my first house, I didn't know I had a water shutoff until it started leaking and I had a soggy front yard.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

I had about 2 inches of pipe between the wall and the valve. Just enough to lay the block on the pipe. Not a big block maybe like a brick.

I didn't think it mattered much if water in the valve froze, I was going to take it apart anyway, as long as the water froze in the pipe too, I was good. So, even less clearance might be okay.

The water was leaking out of the valve at a pretty good rate. I was impressed at how the dry ice just reached out and said, "you're solid near me".

Reply to
Dan Espen

Wow. Where do you guys live?

By March 1 in Baltimore there is little chance, iirc and I might not, of getting weather much below freezing.

By Feb 21 when I'm leaving this year, the odds are higher. I hope sheet rock doesn't crack like the plaster you refer to. .

I don't drain the water heater so if it ever did get below freezing and stay that way for a long time, I guess that would burst, then thaw, and put lots of water on the floor. But I think the 7 foot below-grade basement and its foundation would probably would never get below 32.

Dang. Well, I still will know mine works because I turn on the basement sink to drain the water out of the system and if the valve were leaking it would come out that faucet. I'll admit this is one of the last things I do, so in honor of your scarey story, I'll do it 10 minutes earlier to make sure the water isn't even dripping.

I split my water bill evenly with 350 other families, and if any of us were to have a leak or other great use of water, it gets split 350 ways. They may have installed individual water meters, but they've never paid someone to read them, so we just split it. Other people have bigger families, and might even water their lawns, but that's the way it is.

Reply to
micky

Suffice it to say it was -22C for the last 2 weeks and +11C yesterday. It WILL drop to at least -12 before the end of the week.

Cracking would be due to shifting due to frost buckling. In dry areas it's not a problem, but a name like "springdale drive" might give you a hint. Shutting off sump pumps and heat during the winter is foolishness

When it's -30c (-22f) for days on end with 2 feet of foundation above ground on about half of the house, it's not a case of IF it will freeze, but how soon.

Which was the mistake he made. In a big 2 storey house, shut it off and drain AT LEAST an hour before leaving - and the laundry tub still leaves about 3 feet of vertical between the tap and the watermain shut-off

Reply to
Clare Snyder

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