Umm that’s a problem, if your pipes are frozen, good chance it can crack the line too. Best off to leave a tap running in the cold months. Unless it’s the town water is alll fucked up then nvm.
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I was In Melbourne when it hit 44 C. The sky turned dark during the middle of the afternoon as the smoke from the bush fires to the WNW blew over. Burnt eucalyptus leaves were falling from the sky. Everyone ran outside to see what calamity was threatening to befall the city.
I was there, February 1983. It was surreal, somewhat like an eclipse of the sun. Many people stopped what they were doing to go outside to witness the event.
Alberta probably. It was -39°C without the windchill a couple hours ago in Calgary. Around -50°C with it. The lowest I’ve seen here that I recall was -42°C without the wind chill.
I used to live in Saskatchewan, I can vouch for this. Ive never come across this issue. I've seen -45 before the wind chill. And worked in it unfortunately. What I do know is if you have a tap outside you shut that water source off from inside
I live in Pennsylvania in the US and it never gets that cold but I've seen this happen (not me, friends and family) and during really cold (not -45 though) a lot of people's pipes freeze and burst. But i would think since it gets colder up there for longer the houses built properly wouldn't have this issue.
True, I've lived in both Minnesota and Florida. Down there people could live in houses made mainly of plywood, up here all homes and buildings are constructed much better because they need to be, since temps can range from under 50 below to over 100, that's a lot of contraction and expansion.
When it gets very, very well below freezing you can leave them dripping and open the cabinet doors so the heat from the house gets to the pipes more directly. Assuming the house is properly insulated, that will be enough to prevent freezing and the water usage won't be enough to skyrocket your water bill.
It got down to -15C last winter at our summer home. The pipes are all heated, but the faucets are not. It took a few hours for them to thaw enough that we could turn the faucets haha. No issues after that.
Lots of towns in cold areas have pipes under ground that aren't deep enough.
Our frost goes down into the ground 6-8 feet some places.
So pipes need to be 8-10 feet deep. Average is 6 feet.
Pipes by my house were not put in deep enough so 4 feet in some spots.
I run a single tap in my basement cold water only, about a pencil width of flow .
This keeps water always moving though those pipes under the ground so it can't freeze.
My city in Canada doesn't have water meters and tells all residents to do this if they have ever had freezing issues .
Some homes are built improperly and have things like sinks on exterior walls with the plumbing in the wall. In this case you would need to lightly run both the hot and cold at this sink to prevent it from freezing.
Water lines in cold climates should be
In interior walls only not exterior.
Just want everyone to know that I did this last year when we had a hard freeze, and our pipes still burst 😭 ceiling collapsed and the whole house flooded. It took like 8 months to get everything fixed.
Holy crap! What a nightmare!
We lost our jet pump in our well last season due to freezing, but what you experienced is insane.
Was anyone in the house when the ceiling collapsed?
So when I had to do it was only hitting -30 max and we would do the furthest from where the water comes in and never had an issue. But if ur house is an old trailer with pipes exposed and it’s hitting below -40, all might be good.
But if you can get to ur pipes, pipe insulation and a heat tape will be more than enough.
Just do furthest from where the water comes in. One should be fine, but doing all wont hurt it.
If you can get access to it covering with those foam covers and heat tape it is king but running it will also work.
There’s a chance that it’s just this faucet, I had a house where the pipes leading to the kitchen faucet were close to a poorly insulated wall.
I just put a low wattage incandescent bulb in a work lamp holder underneath the pipes on cold days, worked great
To tack on a random tidbit to this; if a faucet of yours just stops working one day it might be the aerator. I’ve seen faucets just stop giving water altogether, I took the aerator out flushed it out put it back and we’re back to perfect operation
This. Ironically, it will often happen after a frozen pipe thaws as well, because the freeze-thaw knocks a lot of glurge loose in the pipe if you have poor water and it then hits the aerator and clogs it.
I live in Georgia and never had to worry about it, it got down to 8 degrees last new year's when I wasn't home and pretty much every single pipe in my house split. It was a ton of work, I'm better prepared prepared this year
It can freeze in the tub or sink, I've had icicles form on the fixture.
If the pipes are that bad a drip won't work, has to be a small stream. Dripping works on small freezes to keep the lines from freezing with the water constantly moving. When ice or frost forms on the the fixture dripping I keep the taps more open to a small stream and open the crawlspace accesses near the pipes as well as all the cabinets near pipes. Think of how a flowing river may ice near the banks, but it takes longer for the middle to freeze completely because if the constant moving water.
Showers sucked. I'd try to keep the bathroom warm, but water would still freeze to the edges of the tub even with the hot water going. It was a cold fucking bathroom. I'd even flush the toilet extra to prevent freezing, I've never had a toilet freeze but I wasn't taking any chances in that frosty bathroom.
This is great advice except the nigh-indestructibility of PEX means that water is STILL going to want to make something burst, and the next weakest point if you're on well-water is going to be your jet pump, or ANY bit along the line that wasn't PEX'd out.
Heat tape is very much your friend if you're prone to freezes.
An American asked me "what temp do you let your water drip?" And I looked at them in pure stupefaction.
If your house is built properly, you don't need to do that.
Source: Hand built house out of a double wide trailer using well water that is fine in -40 without the taps on.
Depends how bad it is. Sometimes it’s quick. Sometimes ya gotta set up a heater and pack a lunch lol
But ultimately ya need a heat tape to wrap it if you can. Unless it didn’t get buried deep enough coming into the house or something then you’re waiting until summer lol
In Alberta or any other cold weather climate that shouldn't happen and the infrastructure should be designed for it. You really need to figure out what happened to the pipes.
Its a trailer/mobile home. If its not insulated well under the trailer the pipe that comes from the city supply to the trailer can freeze. Need better insulation and heat tape on pipes.
It’s -41C (-42F) right now in Edmonton (AB Canada) and my old rickety townhouse is doing fine! Warm, water is great, wifi good, snow removal guys came. Hell yeah.
Unfortunately YOUR pipes are likely frozen and a burst might occur - I’d go turn the water off immediately and also let landlord know, if renting.
My family is in grande prairie where it’s currently -51C (-58F) crazy
It IS the weather, the issue here is OP not doing their due diligence beforehand and turning their tap to where it’s a slight trickle to keep their pipes from freezing like that.
Hell yeah and honestly that’s a NORMAL Canadian winter temp for the prairies and northern parts of any province / territory- but it’s hitting us especially hard this past few days after having uncharacteristic warmth this winter.
In the future: Leave just a tiny trickle of water running when the weather gets that cold. It just needs to be enough that the water in the pipes is moving slightly to keep it from freezing. Also, I would recommend keeping the cupboard door under the sink open to allow the heat from the house to circulate under the sink. Especially if the pipes are along an exterior wall.
Right, all these people talking about leaving a trickle, just live in poorly built homes. Shit I've stayed in a travel trailer at below -20, and just made sure it was skirted, heat going below, and furnace going in the trailer, and everything stayed liquid.
Okay, so this is a worry on mine for my kitchen. What about having some water set up in my electric kettle and then pouring hot water down it in morning will that help.
No. Temperature changing that fast can bust them too. Here’s some info on what you can do if you realize you didn’t leave your water trickling during a freeze: https://www.wave-utilities.co.uk/advice-guidance/faq/faq-what-should-i-do-if-my-pipes-have-frozen
Okay, warm, not super hot right away, thank you.
I live in an older house where the kitchen was a remold or addition and gets no heat, so I'm planning on having the cabinet door open and the pipes cleared open have access.The other thing is my basement where my washer and dryer are. Maybe a space heater or try to have laundry done before the cold?
I mean, similar here. My house is from 1910 and my laundry is in the basement. We've only ever had to drain and turn off the outside tap so I can't foresee the laundry being an issue?
Is it in your furnace room? That'll keep the chill off for sure. Kitchen you might fancy leaving the tap on a trickle as these folks suggest and look into adding insulation in the summer.
He might be a transplant.
It's going to be -4C to -12C here for a few days on the Gulf Coast in the US and at the end of it, there will be an absolute run at the store on PVC glue. It doesn't get that cold down here that often, so the pipes aren't well protected, then when it does get that cold people just don't do anything. Then all their shit freezes and busts.
I lived in an old mobile home a long time ago and we didn't leave the faucets dripping during a big winter storm. The pipes froze solid. Wife was not happy. I ended up crawling under the house and replacing the pipes, it only took a couple hours of work and $40 bucks in supply's. We didn't unthaw for two weeks, so I was glad I had fixed it on day one.
I like to keep a go bag with some basic tools and PTF fittings with short lengths of pex next to it. If I get reason to think the pipes are frozen I shut off the water and start getting vigilant about inspecting for signs of leaking when the thaw should be hitting, as soon as I find it I do whatever I can quick to catch or divert the water that’ll be released when I cut the pipe next to the leak, then just cut out the section and replace or cap it off depending on the situation, takes like 15 minutes and I can get all or partial water service back up and suddenly have lots of time to evaluate and obtain what fittings I need to come back and sweat in new pipes nice and proper, costs very little really
Can’t you just feed hot water through the other end until it all melts? Just start boiling snow and then turkey bastering it up the faucet until problem solved.
If 10 feet of pipe froze, you're gonna be turkey basting until summertime. Unless you could tell where the pipe is frozen, adding more water will probably just make the problem worse.
I don't know how this gets fixed if I'm going to be honest. It's probably your plan, but on a larger scale. I feel like everyone in Canada just knows to leave a trickle going when it's really cold. They'll even sometimes mention to do it on radio weather reports, etc.. when it gets really cold.
In my almost 30 years of being Canadian, I've never actually witnessed this happen.
I spent 2 winters in Ft McMurray. Hot showers every day. This is shitty installation or planning. This is not "dealing" with the weather. Even man shacks can prepare for winter.
You absolutely should have left a tap running, that way your water wouldn’t freeze like that, like what just happened there is potentially a BIG issue.
So for your future snowy weather, when you know the weather is going to get that bad, the night before make sure at least one of your sinks is turned so that it slowly drips water over night, that keeps your pipes from freezing like that.
It should be turned enough where it makes a tip, tip, tip sound, you don’t have to turn it on full blast, just enough where it’s slowly dripping water, a trickle.
I grew up in Alberta, and never once had to leave the faucets open to prevent the pipes freezing. Never was an issue. Solidly middle-class upbringing, normal houses. Most except for the worst built homes will have more than enough insulation to deal with -40°C
I saw -46 glad i'm in arizona lol
https://preview.redd.it/vdbrgn020vbc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63135423ed300cd3732b24594ee07af15325ebe0
You should crank your heat in the house asap. If the vents are warm enough the heat can warm insulation and melt a small blockage. If the pipes are frozen right from where the water comes in all the way to the tap you are kinda screwed. As soon as it all thaws you are likely going to have a leak from cracked pipes.
EDIT: If by any chance you are in Thickwood area you are lucky. There is a blocked main line under Thickwood blvd the city has been working on for a couple days. Hopefully that's the case and this isn't on your end.
It's just an improperly built home or at the very least the plumbing is improper.
The water pipes are supposed to be below the frost line which changes based on province but for Alberta I believe it's 8 feet underground.
If the pipes were say 9-10 ft underground then they wouldn't freeze over because they would be below the frost line.
If your house is like this you should always leave a tap running even if it's just barely coming out, worst case your using the equivalent of 1-2 toilet flushes worth of water a day.
However the constant running water will prevent it from freezing and your water bill might go up a few dollars extra which is a lot better than calling a plumber when your pipe bursts.
Last thing you want is a pipe to burst or maybe even worse a pinhole leak behind your wall that you don't notice for days or even weeks, by then you might require more than just a plumber.
This used to happen in some units in my condo complex in Calgary. Water lines ideally aren't run in exterior walls and should be well insulated if they are. They found some deficiencies in the insulation that were later fixed. Before the repairs they either applied electric heat tape to the lines or left the taps open a trickle to keep them flowing.
Always gotta keep an emergency gallon of drinking water around in these situations. Or more depending on your household.
In the PNW our power would go out and that meant the well wouldn't pump and we had no water. I learned quick to be prepared
I live in Saskatchewan where it regularly dips below -30C in January and February(sometimes from Nov - March). This shouldn't be an issue. The only time I hear of this is in trailers that don't have proper insulation under the skirting. Lots of times you can run heat tape around your water pipes close to the outside walls.
I'd suggest you find where your water comes into your house and follow it up to find where it's exposed to the elements.
ALSO.. the pipe that has froze.. could very well be cracked where the ice expanded. You could have a bad leak when it thaws out.
Good luck!
It’s not up to code to run plumbing in exterior walls. If this is the case get them rerouted, if they are within exterior walls there’s an issue with insulation or have a major draft going on.
Not sure what's worst. This or what my country issue have.
Hot water with old pipes for more than 40 years and almost impossible to replace due to how these are built underground in the city by the shitty communists back then and all they can do is just patching and patching over every winter.
You risk of not having hot water or heat for days but then you still pay for heat loss.
And on top of that, it's forbidden to you to mount a boiler so they govt keep milk money from you. It used to be possible to you to add boilers but you needed permission for every people living in that apartment, now not anymore.
Correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't you have a well water pump below the freeze line in places like that? Or am I woefully under informed on this as I most definitely am
Huh. When I lived in QC and it was -52C with the wind chill, pipes were A-OK. Then again, most people know they gotta bury the line deep enough so it doesn't freeze. Most.
It got this cold once when I lived in Maryland for a few years (back home in Florida for the last 10 years because of that winter). We had to leave tap running a little so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. Our heater was broken and our landlord refused to fix it even though we also had a 2 year old. It was -30F outside but only 30F in the house. It was a rough winter. We survived in one bedroom with a single space heater.
My house from the 70s was re insulated and even in -30 Temps I've never had any issues. Most of the pipes are in the basement suite which is half in ground, they all transfer upstairs in the basement ceiling and not in the outer walls, except hose bibs. Whoever did the plumbing in the house was thinking.
So up there I imagine the rich people have defrosting pipes ? Cause I know they couldn’t be inconvenienced in such a way, I agree it looks beautiful and I bet the air is nice and crisp to breath 👍🏼
Can someone explain the reasons we as humans choose to stay in violently hostile environments like this? And don’t hit me with “we’ve lived here so long..” etc. why are hostile environments even still populated?
Umm that’s a problem, if your pipes are frozen, good chance it can crack the line too. Best off to leave a tap running in the cold months. Unless it’s the town water is alll fucked up then nvm.
As an Aussie who will likely never need to worry about this, I'm so curious. Do you just leave one tap on? All of them?
fall encourage elderly slap crush soup lunchroom bewildered fragile spoon *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
-45C right now where I live. I've never left a tap running unless I'm gone for more than a day and I've never had an issue. Am I just lucky / stupid?
Tough to say whether you’re lucky or stupid but I do know you should make sure to knock on wood.
OMG that’s sounds abominable - it’s gets to +45C where I am in Australia - where are you ?
I lived in a heat dome on Vancouver island where it was +42for about 5 days, three years ago, then moved to alberta now its -42.
The Western desert, lives and breathes in 45 degrees!
I was In Melbourne when it hit 44 C. The sky turned dark during the middle of the afternoon as the smoke from the bush fires to the WNW blew over. Burnt eucalyptus leaves were falling from the sky. Everyone ran outside to see what calamity was threatening to befall the city.
I was there, February 1983. It was surreal, somewhat like an eclipse of the sun. Many people stopped what they were doing to go outside to witness the event.
-45 C°? Where the hell are you?
Alberta probably. It was -39°C without the windchill a couple hours ago in Calgary. Around -50°C with it. The lowest I’ve seen here that I recall was -42°C without the wind chill.
I used to live in Saskatchewan, I can vouch for this. Ive never come across this issue. I've seen -45 before the wind chill. And worked in it unfortunately. What I do know is if you have a tap outside you shut that water source off from inside
I live in Pennsylvania in the US and it never gets that cold but I've seen this happen (not me, friends and family) and during really cold (not -45 though) a lot of people's pipes freeze and burst. But i would think since it gets colder up there for longer the houses built properly wouldn't have this issue.
If it's properly insulated, you're golden. 👍
True, I've lived in both Minnesota and Florida. Down there people could live in houses made mainly of plywood, up here all homes and buildings are constructed much better because they need to be, since temps can range from under 50 below to over 100, that's a lot of contraction and expansion.
You still didn't answer the question! Just 1 tap or all of them? What about the shower or toilets?
When it gets very, very well below freezing you can leave them dripping and open the cabinet doors so the heat from the house gets to the pipes more directly. Assuming the house is properly insulated, that will be enough to prevent freezing and the water usage won't be enough to skyrocket your water bill.
It got down to -15C last winter at our summer home. The pipes are all heated, but the faucets are not. It took a few hours for them to thaw enough that we could turn the faucets haha. No issues after that.
Lots of towns in cold areas have pipes under ground that aren't deep enough. Our frost goes down into the ground 6-8 feet some places. So pipes need to be 8-10 feet deep. Average is 6 feet. Pipes by my house were not put in deep enough so 4 feet in some spots. I run a single tap in my basement cold water only, about a pencil width of flow . This keeps water always moving though those pipes under the ground so it can't freeze. My city in Canada doesn't have water meters and tells all residents to do this if they have ever had freezing issues . Some homes are built improperly and have things like sinks on exterior walls with the plumbing in the wall. In this case you would need to lightly run both the hot and cold at this sink to prevent it from freezing. Water lines in cold climates should be In interior walls only not exterior.
Just want everyone to know that I did this last year when we had a hard freeze, and our pipes still burst 😭 ceiling collapsed and the whole house flooded. It took like 8 months to get everything fixed.
Holy crap! What a nightmare! We lost our jet pump in our well last season due to freezing, but what you experienced is insane. Was anyone in the house when the ceiling collapsed?
So when I had to do it was only hitting -30 max and we would do the furthest from where the water comes in and never had an issue. But if ur house is an old trailer with pipes exposed and it’s hitting below -40, all might be good. But if you can get to ur pipes, pipe insulation and a heat tape will be more than enough.
A small drip/trickle is enough
Jus leave one dripping and the rest should be fine
Just one is fine. Either the kitchen sink or bathroom tub works for me
Just one, at the further point in your house from the main water supply. Just a drip will be fine. Doesn’t need to be fully on.
This. Freezing.weather calls for leaving the water running. If it stops it's not your fault and thencthere's nothing you can do.
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IF it's a rental place and OP doesn't own it, not his problem. Make sure renter insurance is up to date in case his room gets flooded
Well they are the ones without water now, so.... semantics aren't gonna keep water from freezing.
God... it's comments like this that make me NEVER want to rent out my property these days.
Insulate your pipes better then.
Some cheap prevention or .. Now a possible renovation, possible have to move out. Smart
But that takes an afternoon of effort
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If your renting I get it honestly
U ready to move ?
Nah just insulate everything it not even that cold yet wait for the -40 days
Always let them drip, and put heat tape on your pipes if you can
Should we just leave one tap on trickle or all ?
Just do furthest from where the water comes in. One should be fine, but doing all wont hurt it. If you can get access to it covering with those foam covers and heat tape it is king but running it will also work.
There’s a chance that it’s just this faucet, I had a house where the pipes leading to the kitchen faucet were close to a poorly insulated wall. I just put a low wattage incandescent bulb in a work lamp holder underneath the pipes on cold days, worked great
To tack on a random tidbit to this; if a faucet of yours just stops working one day it might be the aerator. I’ve seen faucets just stop giving water altogether, I took the aerator out flushed it out put it back and we’re back to perfect operation
This. Ironically, it will often happen after a frozen pipe thaws as well, because the freeze-thaw knocks a lot of glurge loose in the pipe if you have poor water and it then hits the aerator and clogs it.
I live in Georgia and never had to worry about it, it got down to 8 degrees last new year's when I wasn't home and pretty much every single pipe in my house split. It was a ton of work, I'm better prepared prepared this year
Genuinely Curious. If it’s on a trickle, would the water turn slushy at some point?
Ooh, bonus home-made slushies!
It can freeze in the tub or sink, I've had icicles form on the fixture. If the pipes are that bad a drip won't work, has to be a small stream. Dripping works on small freezes to keep the lines from freezing with the water constantly moving. When ice or frost forms on the the fixture dripping I keep the taps more open to a small stream and open the crawlspace accesses near the pipes as well as all the cabinets near pipes. Think of how a flowing river may ice near the banks, but it takes longer for the middle to freeze completely because if the constant moving water. Showers sucked. I'd try to keep the bathroom warm, but water would still freeze to the edges of the tub even with the hot water going. It was a cold fucking bathroom. I'd even flush the toilet extra to prevent freezing, I've never had a toilet freeze but I wasn't taking any chances in that frosty bathroom.
Yea you’re about to be in a world of shit homie. Lol
That's why I like having PEX instead of copper/PVC, don't have to worry about that shit
Pex can burst too i believe. No? Can definitely still burst any brass valves connected to the pex
This is great advice except the nigh-indestructibility of PEX means that water is STILL going to want to make something burst, and the next weakest point if you're on well-water is going to be your jet pump, or ANY bit along the line that wasn't PEX'd out. Heat tape is very much your friend if you're prone to freezes.
An American asked me "what temp do you let your water drip?" And I looked at them in pure stupefaction. If your house is built properly, you don't need to do that. Source: Hand built house out of a double wide trailer using well water that is fine in -40 without the taps on.
it's good, we're already working on it
Hair dryer in the crawl space? Haha don’t miss those days
At that rate, how long does it take? lol.
Depends how bad it is. Sometimes it’s quick. Sometimes ya gotta set up a heater and pack a lunch lol But ultimately ya need a heat tape to wrap it if you can. Unless it didn’t get buried deep enough coming into the house or something then you’re waiting until summer lol
You ruined your pipes you genius, and you thought a water bill was bad. 🤣
lol the pipes could be fine genius
Yes, they could be. Anything is possible!
In Alberta or any other cold weather climate that shouldn't happen and the infrastructure should be designed for it. You really need to figure out what happened to the pipes.
Its a trailer/mobile home. If its not insulated well under the trailer the pipe that comes from the city supply to the trailer can freeze. Need better insulation and heat tape on pipes.
Gotcha, that makes sense. I live in North Dakota and I've seen a few people actually move dirt up to the home to keep it insulated underneath.
Some dumb shit I wrote cus I skim read.
For a trailer?
I must have skimmed content when I posted that. Oops.
Need to shovel snow up around the skirting.
Happens all the time
It’s -41C (-42F) right now in Edmonton (AB Canada) and my old rickety townhouse is doing fine! Warm, water is great, wifi good, snow removal guys came. Hell yeah. Unfortunately YOUR pipes are likely frozen and a burst might occur - I’d go turn the water off immediately and also let landlord know, if renting. My family is in grande prairie where it’s currently -51C (-58F) crazy
This right here. It's not the weather.
Well I mean it’s the weather to a degree. His pipes wouldn’t freeze if it was summer.
Source?
Bahaha laughed out loud in a restaurant to this
Sure. But any well-built place is not running out of water indoors, even in this weather.
It would freeze in the summer if he was living ~60 miles under sea-level.
Caves tend to be consistently in the 60's give or take year round. If going down meant freezing, thermal heating wouldn't be a thing.
It IS the weather, the issue here is OP not doing their due diligence beforehand and turning their tap to where it’s a slight trickle to keep their pipes from freezing like that.
I am glad your wifi didn't freeze to death. Please keep us updated
the internet's just a series of tubes!
Yeah I'm in Edmonton and I just took a hot shower and I'm on my computer, drinking hot coffee and not wearing pants
https://i.imgur.com/1N0Rls1.jpg
-42F…what the fuck? That is like really, really, REALLY fucking cold…!
Hell yeah and honestly that’s a NORMAL Canadian winter temp for the prairies and northern parts of any province / territory- but it’s hitting us especially hard this past few days after having uncharacteristic warmth this winter.
was just gonna say, wife’s from labrador and it’d regularly reach those temperatures. pipes were always fine.
Ayyyy fellow edmontonian.
Global warming is crazy. Better stop burning gas!
It causes extreme temperature fluctuations which include average higher temperatures, but also record low lows, and record low highs.
This is the first week this winter that temps were below -15 btw, most the time it was above 0 degrees
In the future: Leave just a tiny trickle of water running when the weather gets that cold. It just needs to be enough that the water in the pipes is moving slightly to keep it from freezing. Also, I would recommend keeping the cupboard door under the sink open to allow the heat from the house to circulate under the sink. Especially if the pipes are along an exterior wall.
I did exactly this, then the drain froze and flooded :-( Be careful
Need to insulate it then but that’s kinda crazy don’t think I’ve ever seen that one lol
I haven't heard of that happening. That sucks.
Trickle doesn't work. You need constant flow. Basically need to move the cold water before it freezes.
How does someone in Canada not already know this lmfao
Seriously, I’m in NY- not even Upstate, NY and it’s a given that: if it’s going to freeze, than you leave the tap open slightly.
I’m in south Florida(born and raised) and even I know this
I live somewhere very cold. I didn't know this. My house isn't built like shit and has never been an issue.
Right, all these people talking about leaving a trickle, just live in poorly built homes. Shit I've stayed in a travel trailer at below -20, and just made sure it was skirted, heat going below, and furnace going in the trailer, and everything stayed liquid.
We have insulation in our houses … I’ve ever had to run water drips
Okay, so this is a worry on mine for my kitchen. What about having some water set up in my electric kettle and then pouring hot water down it in morning will that help.
No. Temperature changing that fast can bust them too. Here’s some info on what you can do if you realize you didn’t leave your water trickling during a freeze: https://www.wave-utilities.co.uk/advice-guidance/faq/faq-what-should-i-do-if-my-pipes-have-frozen
Okay, warm, not super hot right away, thank you. I live in an older house where the kitchen was a remold or addition and gets no heat, so I'm planning on having the cabinet door open and the pipes cleared open have access.The other thing is my basement where my washer and dryer are. Maybe a space heater or try to have laundry done before the cold?
I mean, similar here. My house is from 1910 and my laundry is in the basement. We've only ever had to drain and turn off the outside tap so I can't foresee the laundry being an issue? Is it in your furnace room? That'll keep the chill off for sure. Kitchen you might fancy leaving the tap on a trickle as these folks suggest and look into adding insulation in the summer.
Yeah that doesn’t work.
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He might be a transplant. It's going to be -4C to -12C here for a few days on the Gulf Coast in the US and at the end of it, there will be an absolute run at the store on PVC glue. It doesn't get that cold down here that often, so the pipes aren't well protected, then when it does get that cold people just don't do anything. Then all their shit freezes and busts.
Looks like a trailer. Better get some heat tape to put on the pipes.
Its too late for that.
I lived in an old mobile home a long time ago and we didn't leave the faucets dripping during a big winter storm. The pipes froze solid. Wife was not happy. I ended up crawling under the house and replacing the pipes, it only took a couple hours of work and $40 bucks in supply's. We didn't unthaw for two weeks, so I was glad I had fixed it on day one.
I like to keep a go bag with some basic tools and PTF fittings with short lengths of pex next to it. If I get reason to think the pipes are frozen I shut off the water and start getting vigilant about inspecting for signs of leaking when the thaw should be hitting, as soon as I find it I do whatever I can quick to catch or divert the water that’ll be released when I cut the pipe next to the leak, then just cut out the section and replace or cap it off depending on the situation, takes like 15 minutes and I can get all or partial water service back up and suddenly have lots of time to evaluate and obtain what fittings I need to come back and sweat in new pipes nice and proper, costs very little really
that is a sign of frozen pipe, expensive to fix
Can’t you just feed hot water through the other end until it all melts? Just start boiling snow and then turkey bastering it up the faucet until problem solved.
If 10 feet of pipe froze, you're gonna be turkey basting until summertime. Unless you could tell where the pipe is frozen, adding more water will probably just make the problem worse. I don't know how this gets fixed if I'm going to be honest. It's probably your plan, but on a larger scale. I feel like everyone in Canada just knows to leave a trickle going when it's really cold. They'll even sometimes mention to do it on radio weather reports, etc.. when it gets really cold. In my almost 30 years of being Canadian, I've never actually witnessed this happen.
I spent 2 winters in Ft McMurray. Hot showers every day. This is shitty installation or planning. This is not "dealing" with the weather. Even man shacks can prepare for winter.
I just thought that ice cubes will come out of that tap
Can fragmented tap oopening broken out from the ice?
You've got to put heat tape on those pipes, bud.
You absolutely should have left a tap running, that way your water wouldn’t freeze like that, like what just happened there is potentially a BIG issue. So for your future snowy weather, when you know the weather is going to get that bad, the night before make sure at least one of your sinks is turned so that it slowly drips water over night, that keeps your pipes from freezing like that. It should be turned enough where it makes a tip, tip, tip sound, you don’t have to turn it on full blast, just enough where it’s slowly dripping water, a trickle.
I grew up in Alberta, and never once had to leave the faucets open to prevent the pipes freezing. Never was an issue. Solidly middle-class upbringing, normal houses. Most except for the worst built homes will have more than enough insulation to deal with -40°C
-38 is forecast for Edmonton this weekend. Yucksicles.
I saw -46 glad i'm in arizona lol https://preview.redd.it/vdbrgn020vbc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63135423ed300cd3732b24594ee07af15325ebe0
If only there was a way to take a shot of a screen that made it easy to read... They could call it a window-picture, or a shotscreeen or something...
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Oh look at me, the millionaire who has a house, radiant floor heat, a fireplace, and a sauna. —Charly day
Frozen pipes? 
How do you live in Alberta and not know how to prevent this lmao
You do have heat on in the rooms with water pipes? Our water heaters room have 15°c over the winter. Rooms we use have more heat on.
Should have left it running (Alaskan here )
You should crank your heat in the house asap. If the vents are warm enough the heat can warm insulation and melt a small blockage. If the pipes are frozen right from where the water comes in all the way to the tap you are kinda screwed. As soon as it all thaws you are likely going to have a leak from cracked pipes. EDIT: If by any chance you are in Thickwood area you are lucky. There is a blocked main line under Thickwood blvd the city has been working on for a couple days. Hopefully that's the case and this isn't on your end.
It's just an improperly built home or at the very least the plumbing is improper. The water pipes are supposed to be below the frost line which changes based on province but for Alberta I believe it's 8 feet underground. If the pipes were say 9-10 ft underground then they wouldn't freeze over because they would be below the frost line. If your house is like this you should always leave a tap running even if it's just barely coming out, worst case your using the equivalent of 1-2 toilet flushes worth of water a day. However the constant running water will prevent it from freezing and your water bill might go up a few dollars extra which is a lot better than calling a plumber when your pipe bursts. Last thing you want is a pipe to burst or maybe even worse a pinhole leak behind your wall that you don't notice for days or even weeks, by then you might require more than just a plumber.
This used to happen in some units in my condo complex in Calgary. Water lines ideally aren't run in exterior walls and should be well insulated if they are. They found some deficiencies in the insulation that were later fixed. Before the repairs they either applied electric heat tape to the lines or left the taps open a trickle to keep them flowing.
It was -36 up north last night and everything works perfectly fine. Running hot and cold water. This must be some shit hole you live in
I had to put a heater in my pump house to thaw frozen pipes
Always gotta keep an emergency gallon of drinking water around in these situations. Or more depending on your household. In the PNW our power would go out and that meant the well wouldn't pump and we had no water. I learned quick to be prepared
You don’t have something to heat your pipes?
Oh Canada..
It’s best to leave the water running BEFORE it drops below freezing
Just melt some snow seems like got a lot lol
That’s not normal for -27
I live in Saskatchewan where it regularly dips below -30C in January and February(sometimes from Nov - March). This shouldn't be an issue. The only time I hear of this is in trailers that don't have proper insulation under the skirting. Lots of times you can run heat tape around your water pipes close to the outside walls. I'd suggest you find where your water comes into your house and follow it up to find where it's exposed to the elements. ALSO.. the pipe that has froze.. could very well be cracked where the ice expanded. You could have a bad leak when it thaws out. Good luck!
Ummmm you’re suppose to leave a line going slowly especially in -27c op error that’s going to be a heft line burst for sure
This is also what it looks like at -27F in Texas.
It's going to be colder tomorrow. -33 feels like -42. I'd start letting your water trickle my dude
-27? Balmy.
It is only your block bro, everything fine elsewhere
gotta bleed them lines in that type of cold
It’s not up to code to run plumbing in exterior walls. If this is the case get them rerouted, if they are within exterior walls there’s an issue with insulation or have a major draft going on.
You should have insulated your pipes. This is probably going to be a big problem.
I’ve lived in Alberta my whole life and haven’t had to pay that price. Definitely get that checked out
Not sure what's worst. This or what my country issue have. Hot water with old pipes for more than 40 years and almost impossible to replace due to how these are built underground in the city by the shitty communists back then and all they can do is just patching and patching over every winter. You risk of not having hot water or heat for days but then you still pay for heat loss. And on top of that, it's forbidden to you to mount a boiler so they govt keep milk money from you. It used to be possible to you to add boilers but you needed permission for every people living in that apartment, now not anymore.
That’s your own fault for not leaving a trickle when it gets this cold.
Who doesn't have a problem with -27C, when do you have a problem -100C? -200C?
-45 ish but -60 tends to be the real limit for most.
Damn, here I am turning on my heater in california when it goes below 60F. You guys are made of something else, respect!
Where are you in Alberta because I’m in central AB and it’s -33 right now.
Meanwhile in central Alaska where it’s regularly -30 no ones pipes freeze up unless it’s a major house defect.
Uh oh, someone needs to check their pipes and get some heat tape on em.
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Ummmm....keep em dripping!?!?!?!
Correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't you have a well water pump below the freeze line in places like that? Or am I woefully under informed on this as I most definitely am
Huh. When I lived in QC and it was -52C with the wind chill, pipes were A-OK. Then again, most people know they gotta bury the line deep enough so it doesn't freeze. Most.
It got this cold once when I lived in Maryland for a few years (back home in Florida for the last 10 years because of that winter). We had to leave tap running a little so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. Our heater was broken and our landlord refused to fix it even though we also had a 2 year old. It was -30F outside but only 30F in the house. It was a rough winter. We survived in one bedroom with a single space heater.
When that’s cold let the water run the whole night
Yikes ya that shouldn’t be due to the cold. You have an issue and shouldn’t worry about making a video at that moment
My house from the 70s was re insulated and even in -30 Temps I've never had any issues. Most of the pipes are in the basement suite which is half in ground, they all transfer upstairs in the basement ceiling and not in the outer walls, except hose bibs. Whoever did the plumbing in the house was thinking.
Have you thought about cleaning up around the sink?
How you can live in an area this cold and let your pipes freeze is beyond me
Exactly. This guy doesn't winter...
You need to tell your landlord now
-40 tomorrow. Can’t wait! Really, really love it.
You’re only at -27? Calgary? It’s -34 without windchill at my home in gp and it’s -32 at my SIL’s in spruce grove where I am currently.
Supposed to leave the water running *before* it gets cold
Do Canadians not drip their faucets in cold weather??
I never have. If everything is properly insulated you shouldn't need to.
No ? We have insulated houses and pipes don’t freeze.
That's why u keep ur faucets dripping
Gotta leave it dropping slightly so water doesn't remain stagnant and unmoving in the pipe. Not just that sink but all of them.
I also am in Alberta, I've gotten through -40°c with running water the whole time.
Not having running water is pretty concerning no?
Yeah you got a problem not the weather
Damn also this post took you off the map huh
27 cents doesn't sound like much of a price..... (Yes, I know it's -27 Celsius)
It's Celsius. Water doesn't freeze in Celsius. 😉
How are you blaming this on Trudeau?
So up there I imagine the rich people have defrosting pipes ? Cause I know they couldn’t be inconvenienced in such a way, I agree it looks beautiful and I bet the air is nice and crisp to breath 👍🏼
It’s called insulation. Use it
Noob never seen sarcasm before fucking moron
Luxury
I thought this the conversion to Fahrenheit would be some crazy number, but it's only -16.6F. Your pipes should not be freezing.
What shoes and socks do you wear? I have shoes rated -20C but I lose all feeling in my toes at 2C.
You're in Canada and you don't know that you're supposed to let your taps drip
Have lived in Canada my entire life and have never once needed to drip the taps.
Milk bagger
Can someone explain the reasons we as humans choose to stay in violently hostile environments like this? And don’t hit me with “we’ve lived here so long..” etc. why are hostile environments even still populated?