Here is the science of why you should have your faucets drip when it is very cold outside. Enjoy and God Bless !!!

Thank you for this. I've always been curious but this was a very well made and concise explanation and demonstration.

Thank you . Good luck everyone.

This TV station is local to me and Imagination Station is funded by my Lucas County property taxes (you are welcome)
Don't let your faucets drip if you live in a trailer... The water running down the drain slowly with have an icicle effect and freeze the drain under the trailer.

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Never had to do this where I live and it's currently single digits at night.

I drain all my hose bibs and cover them in the fall before the first hard freeze.

We've had lows in the minus teens and twenties for the past several weeks. There were a several days where it never got above zero. No faucets dripping and no frozen lines. This used to be a thing in older houses with poor insulation or perhaps in less insulated homes in areas not accustomed to cold.

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Question for you experts....

Just moved from San Diego to Charlotte, first real Winter for me...

First question:
When I asked about dripping both cold and hot water lines, people looked confused like why drip the hot water line.

My reply, how long do you have to run hot water before it's hot?

If the hot water is cold at first, why wouldn't you need to let that line drip too?

Second question:
how to drip water into toilets?

Third question:
If I drip water on the bottom floor, do I need to drip on the top floor when they are on the same water line?

Thanks for your input!!!

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Interesting. The liquid N2 certainly was catastrophic.

To be fair, they ONLY proved pipes burst if not flowing but did NOT prove that a dripping faucet prevents it. They would have had to have a a pipe subjected to freezing temps AND a flow from drips to prove that.

I grew up in the Upper Midwest, lived in Alaska, and have lived in Canada. During those years I’ve heard drips is sufficient but I’ve also heard it takes a pencil lead diameter stream of water to prevent freezing.

Also, been around the aftermath of oil & gas pipes freezing & bursting, and I’ve been around the aftermath of leaky valves freezing shut.

I don't think people are understating this whole thing.

The ONLY place you'd even have to worry about doing this is if you have water lines near an external, uninsulated wall where there is concern for freezing.

All your plumbing within the house, you are fine.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I don't think people are understating this whole thing.

The ONLY place you'd even have to worry about doing this is if you have water lines near an external, uninsulated wall where there is concern for freezing.

All your plumbing within the house, you are fine.

This is where details matter.

How is it run through your house?

interior walls - great

insulated exterior walls - probably good if there is enough insulation and there isn't a void.

in the attic running under the insulation - probably good if there is enough insulation

in the attic not under insulation - bad. Lots of Texans in Winter Storm Uri found out the hard way that their asshole builders ran piping in attic through soffits or above insulation.

in an non-encapsulated crawl space - bad

in an encapsulated crawl space - probably good

How the water enters the house matters as well:

through foundation at depth greater than the frost line - good

through the foundation at a depth shallower than the frost line - bad. Eventually this will bite you in the ass where you get a cold year without snow and the frost drives deep.

comes above ground and enters side of house - bad. This is how every lazy asshole builder in my area builds new houses. It wasn't this way when was home shopping in 2005, but everything I saw in 2016 was this way. Enough people in my area had this pipe burst during Winter Storm Uri that water pressure dropped very low for the city water.

Growing up in Upper Midwest, I only remember dripping faucets in rare events (e.g. blizzard '78) but not regular winter storms. I never dripped faucets living in Alaska or Canada as the houses were built for it. The first time I lived in Houston, I never dripped faucets and it snowed an abnormal amount of times. In my current house, I insulate the above ground water pipe entering the house and I drip 2 faucets to keep the ground temp water flowing trough that pipe.

^^^
@PASig
Yep.

Having lived in places where houses/trailers were off grade, pipes in poorly insulated walls, stone walls and those on the north side, were hazard for freezing/bursting pipes.

I live in nearly 90 year old house.
It is off grade, all the plumbing is on the north side of a 1 foot thick stone wall and temps have been at or below freezing (and less than 10 to zero several days in a row) for a week with 1 foot of snow not having any melt in spite of full sunlight.

So, I have been dripping water and "flushing lines" every several hours (open faucet, full flow, shut it off about 2-3 seconds)

First winter here I had the pipes freeze, but none burst. And have dripped every year since with no frozen pipes.

This spell has been the longest/coldest yet.
We'll be out of this by Monday and temps will be above freezing.

I did have areas of the house closed off the first year to try and reduce heat costs, and that may have contributed to the freezing.

My plans are to do the flooring repairs, and when I pull up the floor to inspect joists, I will look at the pipi situation and see if I can mitigate the issue of insuficient insulation.