It was cold last night, so cold I could hear the boards on the deck cracking as they froze. With the snow squeaking underfoot, I checked the thermometer on my way out the door for an early morning emergency call, -11° (F) it read. It may have been colder.
I was laying awake last night worrying about the pipes. We had a pipe on our heating system freeze a few years ago. It had a very cold draft blowing on it all night and I woke up to discover our bedroom was about 35°. I was able to heat up the frozen section and get the water moving before it burst, but I must admit, I was a bit lucky in finding the frozen spot and applying the right amount of heat to it without burning down the house. The drafty spot has been fixed. Now I am more concerned about the well water supply pipe.
I buried it 48 inches deep (or deeper) except where it gets close to the house. There it is about 36-40 inches deep. That is because it comes into the crawl space, which is only 48 inches deep itself. I had to come up a few inches to get away from the footing. I worry that with this really cold weather, the frost level may get down to that depth, in which case, we are screwed.
Therein is the problem with do it yourself. If something goes wrong, there is nobody to call, no insurance claim, only that sinking feeling that something will have to be done over, yet again.
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-11?!? I grew up in Michigan (and am now happily living in California), and I can’t even imagine it that cold. I do remember squeaky snow, though. Good luck on the water pipes.
Yeah, it is chilly down in AL as well (8 degrees last night–e-i-g-h-t)!I liked reading about your new wood burning stove. Did you think about one of the wood burning circulator heater/stoves? Something like: http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200369863_200369863 or http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_47723_47723?cm_sp=Customer%20driven-_-Recently%20Viewed-_-Category%20Page My wife’s grandfather has had one for years and they swear by it. It certainly doesn’t have the ambience of a stove with a visible fire but it seems really, really safe.Richard
Gene – The coldest temperature I have witnessed here was -17 in January of 2005. This morning we were -10, right now (10:45 am) it is a balmy 0 out there.
Richard – I have seen those type woodstoves around. Personally I like the cast iron stoves better simply for the atmosphere it creates when there is a nice warm fire that you can see. We use our woodstove for supplemental heating rather than a primary heat source for the house. It is really nice to watch and enjoy, as well as the soul warming radiant heat that comes from it.
We had -26 the othe morning!! One thing you could do with that water line is dig it up near the house this summer and install some foam board over it. We do this regularly with municipal water lines into buildings when they are near the surface. You can install a couple layers of 2″ blue board and help protect the waterline from freezing. It actually works quite well!
Todd, Good sugestion. I may wait and see what happens but if worst comes to worst, I’ll try the blue board.
eeek guys! -11, -26? That sound unbareable!
-26 is pretty dern cold.