We use a blow dryer on a low setting pointed at a vulnerable pipe. We have one wall that is poorly insulated, and this pipe is the one that leads to our kitchen.
If your pipes do freeze, make sure you know where you water main shutoff is, and know how to use it!
The year we moved in to our current home we didn’t know all the ins and outs of it yet. We had a deep freeze like this, and even though we had water dripping slowly through our kitchen sink, it was the cold water pipe that froze. We had hot but no cold.
Eventually the pipe thawed, but we didn’t know it had a crack in it until the thaw. Then swoosh! I could hear water running somewhere but didn’t know where it was coming from. I decided to check the basement. Oh my! Water pouring from the basement ceiling and one wall!
I was by myself, and it took me a couple of minutes to compose myself and then remember to shut off the water main, and then another minute to actually go through the actual motion of shutting it off. Four minutes of water rushing through a pipe that had a one inch crack in it. Lots of damage. Several thousand dollars, as I recall. Fortunately, our new homeowner’s insurance picked up most of the tab.
I wouldn’t wish a busted pipe on anyone.
Yep, if there is a female in the house, there’s a blow dryer someplace. ;)
I have been worrying over freezing pipes for several days now.
I have a house in Marion IL. 184mi from where I am in MO..it was my late sister’s house and I had my plumber/handyman over there go and put heat-tape on the copper line where it enters the house and up to the main shutoff in the house.
He set the central heat to 50F, opened the faucets, opened under sink cabinet doors, put the heat tape on and shut the main valve off that is next to the electric water heater.
If a pipe were to burst it would fill the house and cause massive damage... I have good insurance but it’s the hassle that is dread-worthy.
I went out on my back patio yesterday to get something out of a freezer that is there...it was 1F inside the freezer according to the digital readout on the side..and it was -2F
on the patio...it occurred to me just how odd it was that at that moment placing something from the patio inside the freezer would cause it to warm up a bit...lol
Here is a tidbit most don’t know...soda machines have a heater in them. It is for times like these so it can switch on and keep the cans above 32F to keep them from busting.. really old soda machines sometimes had incandescent light bulbs that served as heaters.