Weather forecast for this week is windy, gusts up to 45 MPH, and also temps near zero F.
Will the wind chill make it more likely for me to freeze pipes? Compared to still air?
When it's near zero F, and winds of 45 MPH, should I leave a faucet dripping?
Would it be better to leave a hot drip, or a cold drip?
What was the agreement, last time I asked? I think we all on the list agreed about our answers.
I vaguely remember someone called me an idiot.
It all depends how intent you are to freeze them...best of luck!
The routine here is to surround mobile home with straw bales, leave faucets running at a trickle, leave cabinet doors open. Good luck.
It was stated numerous times that water freezes at 32 degrees F
and if the temp is above 32F no matter what the wind chill is... the temp is still above 32F and the pipes will not freeze.
Wind chill is nothing more than how the body perceives the temperature.
This is too logical for this thread/forum/poster...please take your common sense elsewhere! 8^)
Yeah I know.
Maybe we should discuss windshield temp.
It's been stated numerous times that wind chill also affects how heat is removed from any object that is above ambient temp. And hence on a night when the windchill is 5F and the actual outdoor temp is 25, pipes may freeze in certain circumstances when they will not freeze if it were 25F with no windchill.
Simple question. There is an unheated cabin or a house with a drafty crawlspace. Two cases:
A - The forecast if for temps overnight to dip down to 25, no windchill.
B - The forecast is for temps overnight to dip down to 25, 5F windchill.
That's all the info you have.
Do you believe the probability of water pipes freezing is equal in both cases, yes or no?
BTW, thanks for taking the obvious bait from Stormin and starting this all over again.
It would be nil in both cases since the threshold is below 20 degrees for pipes to burst. BTW, you have also taken the bait! *L*
Windchill and wind are not the same thing. Windchill is a calculation of the effect of wind on human skin and should be reserved for discussing that effect. As you point out, however, wind affects other things. Not by the evaporative effect skin is vulnerable to, but by warm air being moved away to be replaced by cold air. In your example above, of course the pipes could be more likely to freeze if the wind can get to the pipes because it could lower the pipe temperature to
Use windchill only when discussing the feel on your skin. But sealing your house to protecting pipes from the cold air blown in by the wind is a very good idea.
Life is made memorable by what goes wrong. OTOH, boring can be good thing. I'd rather be warm and bored indoors, compared to using a heat gun in +2F cold wind.
If the pipes freeze, close the cabinet doors and light the bales on fire?
poster...please take your common sense else where! 8^)
By golly, that means stuff won't freeze over 32F? Really? Supposed to get into the single digits in the next couple days.
But..........in windier conditions, a structure that isn't sealed up tight would likely get colder inside than it would without wind.
And if that pipe is kept wet and exposed to the breeze?
Harry K
You are the Southbound end of a Northbound horse! You just had to rattle trader4's cage again didn't you? Karma is gonna get you!
Buy a couple of those "quebec garages" and a few rolls of gorilla tape. Set the garages up over your trailer to keep the wind off, taping them together with gorilla tape to make one BIG garage. Then leave a window open in the trailer to let some heat into the garage to keep it above 33F, and your pipes won't freeze. Make it long enough to park your Blazer inside too, and let it run to keep warm. The exhaust will put you to sleep so you won't feel the cold.
How's that for an Allegheny redneck solution???
Stormy's "redneck bungalow" will loose heat a lot faster in the wind than on a still day of the same temperature.
You failed the test. The question was about *freezing*, not bursting.
No, I only responded after philo decided to start this discussion all over again. I saw the other responses and was going to say nothing to start it up again, as did other posters. But if philo wants to go over it again, then here we are.
No one ever said they were. But windchill together with temp are a proxy for windspeed.
Windchill is a calculation
It's not primarily an evaporative effect on skin, unless you think people sweat when it's 15F out. Wind produces it's chill by taking more heat away from any object that's above ambient. That includes not only humans, but other objects as well.
Which is the same effect that windchill has on humans, a hot brick placed outside, or a metal pipe sticking outside a wall. YEs, it was created as a guide to how much colder it feels to humans, but that doesn't mean it's effect doesn't apply to cats, bricks and pipes.
In your example
It does if it's a warm pipe and it's placed outside. I have a copper water pipe that's exposed and it runs 25 ft outside. I have some small amount of water flow moving through it to prevent it from freezing. Do you think the same amount of water flow that's just sufficient to keep it from freezing when it's 20F and no windchill is going to be sufficient to keep it from freezing when the windchill is
0F? If I told you that the windchill was 20F or 0F you would not be more concerned about the pipe freezing in one situation versus the other?Use another example of 40 degree air on a
Neither I nor anyone else here ever said that windchill can cool a pipe below ambient.
The fact that you don't understand that windchill has a similar effect on objects other than humans doesn't mean it's not valuable information that can be used in other situations. I noticed you didn't give an answer to the simple questions posed either.
I was thinking of saying something along those lines too, but didn't want to complicate it. I agree, evaporative effect of cooling is going to increase with windchill. But even in humans, I don't think the primary cooling effect is evaporation, unless you believe people's exposed skin sweats when it's 15F. In the winter temps when windchill is most frequently used, I would think the main component is that wind removes more heat from a human just like it would more quickly remove heat from a hot brick placed outside.
In fact, in the other long thread on this, someone pointed out that long ago when scientists first tried to come up with a windchill index, they used water bottles exposed outside and how fast they froze. Strange, if windchill only affects humans, how you can measure it by how long it takes to freeze a bottle of water.
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