Possible Frozen Pipe

[clare]

You would have to go back a LONG ways to be "before they had these". The shutoff with the bleeder goes back well over 70 years.

[clare]

No, there is another effective way. Install a drainable shutoff, Shut off the water, open the silcock. Remove the drain cap or open the drain valve. Applu compressed air to blow out the line. Close the silcock and the drain.It's called "blowing out the lines" and is standard procedure for winterizing camper trailers and seasonal vacation homes, as well as irrigation systems.

[clare]

Another "trick" to reduce the likelihood of freeze-damaging copper pipe is to use annealed copper tubing. Either buy the stuff in a roll or anneal your own Type K (or possibly L). It is pliable enough in annealed state to withstand freezing, and can handle several freeze-thaw cycles before it work hardens enough to split.

[micky]

I'm not much of a gardener anyhow. I think I only use water in the back yard the first summer after I plant a tree, which is only not often. And since I got 100 feet of garden hose, it's long enough to reach the back and I've stopped using the back yard faucet.

But yes, I drain the front yard faucet every year. Except a couple years I was depressed and didn't think of it in time. That's when I bought the foam covers, and one time I left the water dripping slowly.

I don't know. But it only takes once to make me very unhappy.

I've been meaning to talk to a few neighbors. In townhouses things are almost the same from house to house. But I've only talked to one so far, a woman in her 70's I think, and she does what I do every year. Someday maybe I'll remember to ask others.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. If the sheetrock or whatever is on the garage side is getting wet, I think he has no choice but ot open the wall.

As I said, I don't think that matters. It only means it won't leak until he turns the inside valve back on, and he could leave it off forever, but if I were in his shoes, I'd turn it on and hope there was no leak. And I'd rather have the use of the faucet even if it meant opening up the garage wall.

I think the odds a wet spot woudl show up are high, 40 to 1.

Well if there is a leak but it never shows up, those who know me will know that I'd just forget about it**. Well I'd assume there is no leak if it never shows up.

**Here's a related example. When I first bought this house, the bathtub upstairs would sometimes leak down the chain that's part of the dining room light fixture. It wouldn't drip on the table, it would collect in the glass sphere around the light bulb, and unless the light was on, I could barely tell and never actually noticed, even though it was as much as 2" deep. It may have even reached the lightbulb the first time, but the bulb never broke. Mostly it seemed to happen when my brother visited and took showers. Baths didn't seem to cause this. 3 of the 10 neighbors I visited over the years had had repairs to their dining room ceiling because of the same thing. .

Since I took baths most of the time, I ignored it, and eventually it stopped even when someone took a shower. I figure the dirt and dead skin from our bodies plugged the leak. If I ever do have to rip that apart, whether I do it myself or pay someone, I hope I remember to find that leak and fix it.

[micky]

I get it. I didn't look hard enough to see if there was something on the end to keep the water inside.

Yes, that was my point.

I have a hose reel, with a crank, something I've admired since I was 8 years old. A couple years ago, there was a pinhole in the integral pipe. I've tried a couple things to stop it. I also have tried to buy a replacment just like the original, so I won't have to drill other holes I even saved the box it came in in t he attic, so I know just what to look for.

But there are almost no metal hose holders or reels for sale anymore, and for sure not my model

Anyhow, I disconnect the reel from the spigot and I wind everything up, take off the nozzle at the end, and then spin the reel in the right direction about 80 times, about 20 or 30 times after the water stops coming out. There still might be a trifle water in the bottoms of the loops, but not enough to damage the hose.

If there's already a pinhole, it's probably very thin a lot of other places. But otherwise it's fine. I'm curious to see how long I can keep this thing working.

[Mayayana]

| > So the only | >way to rule out Rube Goldberg is to rip out the wall.) | > | No, there is another effective way. Install a drainable shutoff, Shut | off the water, open the silcock. Remove the drain cap or open the | drain valve. Applu compressed air to blow out the line. Close the | silcock and the drain.It's called "blowing out the lines" and is | standard procedure for winterizing camper trailers and seasonal | vacation homes, as well as irrigation systems.

I think you're confusing matters. First you talked about messed up plumbing in a barn. Now you're talking about housing with no heat. This is a heated a house with a pipe in the outside wall that may be frozen. You would put a drain valve in the cellar, then blow out the pipe with compressed air? What good will that do if the pipe has burst? And if it hasn't burst in all these years when the inside valve was shut off, why would you think a drain valve is needed now?

Millions of houses in the US are fine in the winter without needing special drain valves. I've never even seen such a valve. I've also never seen water in a pipe freeze except where the supply was turned on in a section of pipe *and* that pipe was cold enough to freeze. In other words, most people just turn off their inside shutoffs in the winter. The OP is not dealing with a barn or irrigation system or trailer or unheated house.

[mike]

I'd agree that it's likely... BUT I'd stop short of calling it SAFE.

Put a drinking straw in a glass of water. Suck on it to fill the straw with water. Put your tongue over the top end. Pull out the straw. What do you see happening?

[trader_4]

In general, I agree. Except that many, probably most freeze proof sillcocks also have an antisiphon valve. That's like having an opening on the top of the straw. If it doesn't have that, then I agree, there is some chance that the water might not run out. I thought the same thing with those suggesting that with a regular sillcock, all you have to do is turn the water off and open the valve. Probably works most of the time, but how lucky do you feel?

[clare]

How cold does it get??? Up here in Central Ontario the draining shutoff was standard equipment before the frost-free became common

But he IS dealing with an "unheated area" with a water pipe in it.

If it has not frozen in the past he is LIKELY safe - but then again, he has generally turned off the water and opened the tap before freeze-up - and this year apparently he did not - and he's worried.

>

[micky]

So where is the pipe? Does it go through the studs that hold up the drywall? With cinder block on the other side. It might be pretty warm in there.

You're probably okay this time too, but I don't blame you for being cautious.

If it leaks, you can just turn off the water again and fix it in the spring. I woudln't want to do any of thils work when it's winter.

[trader_4]

It was standard here too, in NJ. Now all new construction I've seen uses freezeproof sillcocks. Might be required in code, IDK.

Maybe true. A lot of people drive around talking on their cell phones too. Millions of them don't have accidents. But a significant percentage do. And I'll bet a significant percentage of installs without a drain wind up screwed too. As another poster pointed out, what matters is if the water can and will run out of the pipe after it's shut off. He gave an example of capillary action, holding water in a straw. The drain on the valve takes care of that too. Other pipes are installed with a slight pitch into the house, because of oversight, something was in the way, etc. So, how lucky do you feel?

Water being turned on has little to do with it. The pipe being filled with water is the most important part. What happens if you put a glass bottle full of water in a freezer? When you winterize a house, do you just shut off the water or do you drain or put antifreeze in everything? That includes sink P traps, toilets, etc.

In other words,

Agree. It only takes once. A friend with a house that's only

8 years old had a problem last winter. The condensate trap froze on the furnace in the attic, busted and started leaking. (that's another example with no water supply being turned on) There was no heat tape, it was clearly installed incorrectly. But it was fine for 6 years, until it got to single digits and the temp was set back far enough so the furnace didn;t run for long enough to allow it to freeze, etc.

[Ameri-Clean]

UPDATE: Thanks everyone. I turned on the water in the basement and the soun d of water going through the pipe came to a stop. Then I heated the pipe in the basement with a heat gun and used a laser thermometer to determine tha t the heated water wasn't moving toward the spigot. So, unless it's a slow leak I think I'm OK. I then shut off the valve in the basement, opened the small drain cap, opened the spigot in the garage, and that should remove a ny further danger of water freezing in the pipe.