Texas freeze

[danfromsyr]

many, many houses here in Upstate NY don't have frost free bibs.
they're supposed to have an interior shut off and open the bib to drain out when we go through our 'winterization' rituals.. between columbus day & thanksgiving.
they sell foam cups that hook over the bibs to protect them..

I've left mine unwinterized a few times.. and been lucky.. even with an unheated basement. we see plenty of cold weather..

I do plan to replace and add in frostfree bibs in the replumbing project of 2021 though, maybe I need to buy my plumbing fittings for this NOW. I'm sure plumbing prices will go up to meet plywood costs..
and Drywall too I'm sure.

That was pretty good. Hard to understand, though, why anyone living in an area with potential freezing wouldn't use frost-free bibs.

 

[larry4406]

Notice how the product lawyers refer to them as “frost free” vs “freeze proof”?

 

[BruceMc]

many, many houses here in Upstate NY don't have frost free bibs.

I guess. I grew up around Detroit in houses built in the late 50s and early 60s, and don't actually remember if they had them. Although the houses did have fully heated basements where the wall penetrations were. But then, that was also the era of minimal insulation and single pane windows, too.

 

[jam0o0]

Most homes in Houston are slab on grade with plumbing it the attic. Not just water heaters. Most houses I've been in are copper, with some PVC piping. Only really new stuff has PEX in my experience.

Local code only requires the pipes within 5ft of an exterior wall to be insulated. The rest are typically just above the ceiling insulation.

This just doesn't happen down here. The closest thing I can remember is in the late 90's when we had an ice storm that knocked out power for a night or 2. Other than that I haven't seem snow or ice stick for more than 36 hrs ever. This snow stayed for 7 days at my house.

We lost power for 36hrs during the 2 coldest nights and then again the next night for 18hrs. I kept the house at 60 with a propane fired fireplace. We are on a well so no water pressure in the system but I didn't drain it (stupid). We had 20 breaks in our copper pipes all in the ceiling. With the help of some friends and 2 days of work, 5 stores and 4 houses worth of spare parts we got my house holding water again.

This is so widespread that I was getting estimates of 2 weeks or more before I could get a plumber out to even look at the house. My propane delivery company was getting 4000 calls a day. Their phones have been turned off for the last week.

 

[tez929rr]

We lost power for 36hrs during the 2 coldest nights and then again the next night for 18hrs. I kept the house at 60 with a propane fired fireplace. We are on a well so no water pressure in the system but I didn't drain it (stupid). We had 20 breaks in our copper pipes all in the ceiling.

Do you have a storage tank? That made a huge difference for us. Our tank makes enough head pressure that we could keep the water flowing when the power quit. It’s a big investment but it paid off. Poly tanks are big now but a lot more likely to freeze.

 

[andyvh1959]

What a mess. Makes me wonder if codes in the southern states will change to only use PEX and required some form of insulation on the pipes themselves. Perhaps require a freeze proof tunnel of 2" or 4" pink styrofoam required for all water plumbing. PEX is much more capable to withstand freezing versus copper tubing. Even if the water can just maintain the ground temperature when it enters the house and ceilings it'll be protected from freezing.

I recently installed a water line through the kitchen floor for the in-door water for my new fridge. My tri-level house was built in 73, and has the typical cantilevered sections over the lower level that are minimally insulated, certainly not sealed well. The PEX line I installed ran into the cantilever area under the kitchen, I added insulation but I positioned the insulation to actually block heat transfer into the pipe zone, add it froze when the -10F hit. I had previously opened the ceiling above my office (under the kitchen) to repair a rotted drain line, so I had to open another access hole to thaw the line and insulate it properly. I insulated beyond and under the pipe with sections of 2" pink styrofoam; so I have 14" beyond the pipe and 8" under the pipe, and I left the entire above the pipe uninsulated so heat could conduct into the cantilevered zone, I also wrapped the pipe in 1" foam insulation. We've had numerous -10F and worse nights here in Green Bay since and no other freeze issues.

I wonder what problems exist down south for water hydrants? Up here in the deep hard frozen north the water hydrants have no water in them. When needed the responders open a valve six feet or deeper in the ground via the large nut on top of the hydrant. Are the hydrants in the south plumbed similarly?

 

[firebirdparts]

I don't know how much good it would do, but burying plumbing in attic insulation would certainly not have been a big price to pay.

If the water stays on, crack a faucet open and you'd be good forever. But that's "if".

I don't know much about hydrants, but they certainly look the same in the south to me.

 

[slowtwitch73]

This just doesn't happen down here. The closest thing I can remember is in the late 90's when we had an ice storm that knocked out power for a night or 2. Other than that I haven't seem snow or ice stick for more than 36 hrs ever. This snow stayed for 7 days at my house.

There were 4 days of below freezing in 2011 yeah?

 

[tez929rr]

There were 4 days of below freezing in 2011 yeah?

Not around here. The longest I’ve even seen is 36 hours.

 

[niget2002]

There were 4 days of below freezing in 2011 yeah?

Not all of Texas.

 

[JAYoung]

Even on a slab a house should be plumbed to have a drain **** at the bottom of the system. You'd still have to deal with the water heater and toilet bowls, but it would be cheap insurance if a house is left vacant for a period of time.

 

[ddawg16]

It has snowed in Houston 33 times since 1895

https://www.khou.com/article/weathe...snow/285-d9b65f7a-f789-42f0-9ca8-50ff6ce16455


https://www.chron.com/weather/article/snow-valentines-day-houston-1960-15946580.php

 

[tez929rr]

Even on a slab a house should be plumbed to have a drain **** at the bottom of the system. You'd still have to deal with the water heater and toilet bowls, but it would be cheap insurance if a house is left vacant for a period of time.

Where? It would have to be exposed, and all the water has to go someplace. Into the drain system? How low would it have to be?

 

[dcg9381]

It's not about snow. We get snow (sometimes). It was a consecutive days of deep freeze with added power outages and water supplies going away. Many apartments here rely on water as a means for central heating... And when everything IN the building hits freezing, big problems...

This was the coldest I've ever seen in Texas (consecutively) since I've been alive. People can blame the power grid leadership, but my guess is we've been spending money or summer infrastructure and population growth and declined to appropriately handle what was a 50-100 year freeze.

We had 4" pipe freeze solid. I've never seen that happen.

We were unable to heat the shop above about 50 degrees. Most of Texas relies on "heat pumps" - which are efficient in the summer, but don't do much good below freezing. Ours are ductless and don't have aux strips... So to maintain 50, I was using 300% more power than normal.

Many people here without power for 3-4 days in a row, some without water for 10 days now. Schools are still shut down. Apartments that rely on circulated water for central heat - no heat. It was truely a @#$@# show.

It's now 72 out.

We're out in the "hill country" - I've repaired at least 5 of my neighbors wells / water collection systems as I had PVC on hand and had a 4wd UTV. The backlog for plumbers will be at least 2 months and local hardware stores do not have a single piece of PVC on hand (it was already purchased up). Lots of people had interior pipes burst - which did massive damage to homes.

I've loaned out my 100# propane tanks to those whose propane ran dry... Propane distributors here are massively backlogged and there are homes that need propane as a primary fuel source.

I spent a bunch of time this week keeping our own systems running - we froze 3 times and it was a serious battle to keep all the water working. We managed to recirculate our water system, but those on traditional systems were not as lucky. I have 5000 gallon water tanks and they probably had 3" of ice in them all the way around. In no way did we ever consider that those tanks might get close to freezing - a few more days and they would have broken.

Have a pool with power down when it's 7 out? You're screwed. Plumbers are capping them as a temp measure.

I saw fully insulated pipes freeze.. And remember, when you lose power for 3-4 days, the insulated pipes in your wall WILL freeze. Have a tankless system? Yea, those exploded internal copper too...

I've never seen a Texas home with a low-point drain, so it's not possible to plan for this - nor were we able to plan for a consistent lack of power... My guess is damage is in the billions of dollars, greater than some big hurricanes.

Most people were immobilized. Streets were ice covered with snow. If you had an aggressive tread 4x4 or a UTV, you could get around in an emergency, but that's about it.

Schools here are still closed - no water at the schools around here.

Good news? I got 3 ski runs in on virgin powder... Can't say that I ever though I'd do that in Texas.

 

[dcg9381]

There were 4 days of below freezing in 2011 yeah?

I vaguely remember that, but it didn't hit all of Texas that hard and temperatures did not dive into single digits..

Where? It would have to be exposed, and all the water has to go someplace. Into the drain system? How low would it have to be?

We have this on northern homes / homes designed for cold climates. I've NEVER seen it on a home in Texas. Here, we just assume that the water will stay on and we're told to "drip" the faucets to keep water flowing. Problem is power and water both failed.

A drain system (assuming us dumb Texans could learn to use it) would work, it'd just need to be below the foundation level and it could dump into the yard... But no one would have used this until it was too late - we just didn't expect multiple days without water (or power).

 

[tez929rr]

We have this on northern homes / homes designed for cold climates. I've NEVER seen it on a home in Texas. Here, we just assume that the water will stay on and we're told to "drip" the faucets to keep water flowing. Problem is power and water both failed.

A drain system (assuming us dumb Texans could learn to use it) would work, it'd just need to be below the foundation level and it could dump into the yard... But no one would have used this until it was too late - we just didn't expect multiple days without water (or power).

We got through it just fine. But we live in the boonies and have a 5000 gallon tank uphill of the house. Water flows fine even with no boost pressure. The longest power was out was about 2 1/2 hours. We have 6 separate buildings with plumbing and nothing froze.

But the idea that city and suburban dwellers could have been prepared for this (as some have asserted) is just silly. Prepared for losing power and city water supply for a week? Trickling faucets is usually all it takes as the power and water systems have always been robust enough to get through the previous extremes. To have enough food and potable water for a week is reasonable but to have the infrastructure in a suburban tract home to avoid all damage is just not going to happen.

 

[My Old Tools]

79 degrees today. 88 degree swing Tuesday to Tuesday. Snow is gone, lake temp is 50, fish are biting. I'll take our 5 day winter compared to most other places.

 

[andyvh1959]

A whole house drain would also be dependent on most of the house plumbing being pitched toward the drain end. Then to be certain no dips or low routes still had water in them, all internal drop lines would have to be higher than the faucets so after shutting off the water and opening the whole house drain, then every faucet would have to be opened to drain any drops.

Next issue are the internal drains and traps, toilets, those would have to be treated with polypropylene glycol (antifreeze) to keep them from freezing/cracking.

My niece's in laws have a winter weekend ski house in upper Michigan, and only enough heat is kept on to keep the house from freezing. But all the water lines have to be drained and the drain traps/toilet treated with antifreeze to keep it all from cracking.

 

[Dogmeat]

I'll take our 5 day winter compared to most other places.

You can KEEP your "5 day winter" in Texas....I'll take a longer winter here in Michigan and love it...we have it made compared to a lot of problems a lot of states have.....that we DON'T have!!

 

[mscott32]

I feel bad for you texan brothers who had to go through this, You state really should have prepared better for this scenario... terrible stuff to witness from the outside.