I've always lived in the South. The farthest north I've lived was west central North Carolina, and that was only about 18 months on a work transfer, apartment living.

Where I live, the coldest it's gotten in 38 years is 5 degrees, and that was once, and for a day or two. It got down to 7 degrees back in the 1990s. You get the idea. In a typical winter, we might get down to 20, or 17/18 on rare occasion.

We manage to keep our pipes from freezing via the usual method of letting a bit of water drip overnight in a couple of faucets in the house, and putting covers over the outdoor spigots.

I've taken to setting the delay on the dishwasher so it runs at 3 or 4 in the morning, so that a bit of water runs through the kitchen pipes. Probably not even a half gallon with newer dishwashers, if that.

So, what do you do when you get much colder temps every winter? Are there different construction methods for homes built in, say, Minnesota or Montana or New York? Extra insulation on pipes, or what? It seems to me that the method of keeping a bit of water moving through your pipes would be cost prohibitive if you have to do it for three months straight. What about our members in Alaska or Canada?

Just curious. What's the story?

Burn thousands of dollars in natural gas. I open the cabinet doors on a vanity in a BR on an outside wall. Shut off and drain outside faucets. I have electric heat in my feral cat boxes. It's a struggle for sure. Yes, I think all (modern houses) in this area have more insulation. My 1962 does not. In fact, it has a ton of recessed lighting from the 60s and leaks like a sieve.

We lost three people in a local home to CO poisoning last week. Happens every year in our area. People dropping over from heart attacks digging out of snow. Scads of snow and ice related accidents. In Erie PA, roves collapsing from the snow. Winter treads on the car (fo the smart ones). Lots of variables and counter measures.

My house (built in 2005) has 6" exterior walls w/ 2"x6" Studs & R22 Insulation. I had the 2nd Floor Ceiling/Attic Floor framed w/ 2"x10" Joists and there's R30 Insulation in the attic. Thankfully, there are NO water pipes in any of the exterior walls, so there's no chance of the water pipes freezing unless is below 32 degrees in the house!

I think it’s due to the building codes for different regions….My attic minimum is R30 and exterior walls R25 which is able to be accomplished with standard 2 by 6 framing. A quick search of Georgia insulation codes is attic R30 and exterior walls R13.
We have quarter turn valves on all our outside water spigots…turn them off and drain for the winter. We have never had a pipe freeze and have also never left any faucet drip to prevent freezing.

We drip faucets anytime outside temps drop below 20 degrees. On subzero nights, one of us gets up about every 2 hours and runs the faucets at full flow for a couple minutes and return to drip.

Our well pressure tank and water softener are in a small spray foam insulated shed. We have a heater designed for pump houses/well pits . If the temp in the shed drops to 34 degrees(I have a remote sensing thermometer with read out in the house), I have a supplemental kerosene heater we light.

quote:

I have electric heat in my feral cat boxes.

Good on you r0gue.

I lived in northern Montana and renovated my home. House was built in the 50s and had 2x4 exterior walls with R13 fiberglass insulation. Coldest I ever saw was -59 degrees. My door handle glazed over with ice from the condensation out of the warmer interior air.

The only pipes that ran to the exterior walls were supplys to the Frostproof sillcocks and then the kitchen drain. The drain was only in the exterior wall for a couple feet.
Everything else was run through the joists and up through the floor into the cabinets to keep it out of the cold.

I have a log home constructed out of 10" D logs. No plumbing on the outside walls. The foundation is ICF with a heated floor (electric boiler). Upper floor is 2x6 walls with spray foam insulation on those walls and the roof.

I start the heating season (October-April) with a full propane tank (summer fill discount) and 800 gallons in the "pre-buy" bank. My furnace is the only appliance on propane and I usually end the season with a credit from my unused pre-buy. When the temp is 35+ I run the air-source heat pump as an alternative to save propane.

I built this house making sure I would never have freezing pipe issues. The first house I bought would freeze pipes all the time. Never had one burst though.

In Rhode Island we had 110 volt low intensity ribbon heaters we wrapped around the garage and basement exposed pipes which kept them thawed. As I recall, they had a thermostat on them which only turned them on when the temperature got cold.

For example: Link

I have a spigot in the front and back of the house. In the laundry room a shutoff valve
for each one where it's warm, crack open the outside faucets. Shouldn't be hard to splice in a valve.
Uninsulated walls, I'm not sure.

I make sure that all of my pipes are exposed to ambient house heat. Only 1 failure in 28 years when I missed a piece of insulation at a -20f night, caught before big issue

We are in upstate NY. About an hour southeast from Syracuse.
Our home was built in the mid 1970's. We moved here in 2017.
My girlfriend's parents were the previous owners and they added lots of insulation.
After one winter heating with fuel oil, we added a pellet stove.
Heat cost with pellets is 1/3 to 1/2 of the fuel oil.

We only use fuel oil now for domestic hot water.
The boiler, hot water storage tank, water softener, well pressure tank are all
in an attached room on the side of the house. When heating with fuel oil, the waste
heat from the boiler heated the boiler room very nicely.

Now, heating the house with pellets, stuff could freeze in the boiler room at night.
I added two infrared lamps (chicken coop style) in the boiler room for adding heat.
When it's below 15 F° or so, I turn them on. (500 watts for the pair)

We never run faucets when it's cold and don't freeze any pipes.
I do open some interior cabinet doors when it's below zero.

The house I grew up in had one section of water pipes (about 4 ft total) in an exterior wall, feeding the kitchen sink. When we'd have an extended period of really cold weather, combined with a northerly wind against that side of the house, they'd freeze up.
Below the kitchen was partly garage/partly utility room with the furnace and water heater. Unfortunately, the portion of pipe that was on the kitchen exterior wall was above the garage section.
Our solution was to put a utility work light with a clamp and a 100w incandescent bulb pointing at the garage ceiling under the pipe, right where the wall and ceiling met.

One of these:



The heat produced by the bulb was sufficient to keep the pipe from freezing up. and relatively cheap to operate.

I live in SE Michigan and have a small ranch with a full basement. All pipes are in the floor between the basement and main floor. I keep the house around 70 year around so there are no freezing issues inside.

Outdoor faucets have an indoor shut off that I turn off the first time the temp dips below freezing for more than a few days. Usually around Thanksgiving.

I typically wouldn't worry about pipes freezing unless I lost power during a hard cold spell. In which case I'd close the main shut off into the house, drain the pipes, and wait for power to return.

It will get PFC here (Pretty Fuckin' Cold). Below zero for a stretch of days, maybe a week or so. This happens every few years. Get to other parts of the country and it's worse. On the other hand, I'm not dealing with 95F+ and 85%+ humidity for months on end.

Water Pipes are not directly against as outside wall. There's either foam board insulation between the pipes and wall, or there's pipe insulation- looks like a "pool noodle" with a slit in it so it fits over the water pipe. Everything is off of the exposed outer walls, and there's enough insulation.

Shut-off valve about 1' inside the house for the outside spigots, shut off the valve and bleed out the water every fall.

I'm more worried about my antifreeze freezing.

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Originally posted by motor59:

The heat produced by the bulb was sufficient to keep the pipe from freezing up. and relatively cheap to operate.

The problem is you can no longer buy normal light bulbs that produce significant heat. And heating bulbs are too hot to put under your house. My dental hygienist lost her entire house and all contents because she kept chickens under the back deck and used a heating bulb in a brooder lamp, like the one you show.

My house is over 100 years old and I use the system you describe, but am running out of old stype bulbs that produce heat. I used to buy them at estate auctions when I could find them, but not anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
I live in SE Michigan and have a small ranch with a full basement. All pipes are in the floor between the basement and main floor. I keep the house around 70 year around so there are no freezing issues inside.

Lots more houses with basements up North, this helps a lot. Out side water lines are 3 feet deep or so, below the frostline. Grew up in South Buffalo, during the Blizzard of 77, high temp of zero for a week, it was cold in that old farm house, had hot water radiators in a couple rooms, well water never froze. Mainly because the water lines ran under the floor into interior rooms on the basement ceiling.

Where are these pipes? I have my water system in a basement that stays well above freezing. Well pipe enters about 4' below ground so I guess that would be vulnerable at some level of cold. But not likely.
But the normal method around here if you have an unheated crawlspace is insulation externally, then insulation on the pipes and if that is insufficient then tape heaters on the pipes.
lastly but not great is letting water run.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
Where are these pipes? I have my water system in a basement that stays well above freezing. Well pipe enters about 4' below ground so I guess that would be vulnerable at some level of cold. But not likely.
But the normal method around here if you have an unheated crawlspace is insulation externally, then insulation on the pipes and if that is insufficient then tape heaters on the pipes.
lastly but not great is letting water run.

Don't know if this question was directed to me. A crawlspace is way more different than a basement. I looked online at the property I mentioned, it was built in 1830, found a picture on line on how it was run back then, on the basement ceiling.

https://abihomeservices.com/wp...es-in-old-houses.jpg

Central coastal Maine here. All of the stuff previously mentioned, just one added tip:

We have oil-fired baseboard hot water (hydronic) heat. At one point in my younger days I wanted to insulate the plumbing for the heat thinking to save on oil.

An older and wiser friend advised against it as the heat radiated from the plumbing was a "feature, not a bug." Had I done it, the basement would have been MUCH colder (it stays around 50°) and the upstairs floors would certainly have been cold and in extreme conditions, plumbing in the basement may have frozen.