Adventures in cold weather

[AndrewMeronek]

I figure this might be fun to share. With the current cold weather, I got a pipe freeze and burst for the first time in my house.

Oh the joys of home ownership!!!

Right now, I have my house's water shut off, and am trying to find a shutoff valve for this set of pipes, which go from the concrete floor to the upstairs kitchen. Now I know what that weird little "chase" in the corner that I mounted some hooks to hang and dry my trombone slides was for: crappy application of plumbing for some hairbrained idea of a kitchen relocation sometime in this house's past. I suspect that the original design of this house had a kitchen in this corner of the 1st floor, which would avoid any problems of pipes freezing because this floor is about 1/3 underground.

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It seems to me like this "insulation" if it were effective at all would insulate the water pipes from both the outside cold AND the inside heat of my house . . .

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[ghmerrill]

They probably froze in that location once before as well. That doesn't look like I'd expect the original plumbing to look: I suspect those solder joints are from an earlier repair from freezing. and if you look further down you'll see the other end of the new pieces that were put in.

We've owned three old houses. The first (Zion, IL) was a real mess (no heat to 2nd floor), asbestos/concrete shingle siding, a basement that flooded with every rain (though our young kids loved to see the salamanders that swam around in that), a flat roof over a rear one-story addition. I learned a lot about home maintenance in those years (on an assistant/associate professor's salary).

The second was a really nice place, a block from Wheaton College. I think the only thing we did to it was put in a nice gas fireplace and a backyard fence. I'd left academia by that time. It was a very nice (brick) place, with a finished basement and 6(!) bedrooms, a grade school two blocks away and a middle school almost across the street. Best heating system (forced hot water) that I've ever had.

The third (and current one) is on 6.5 acres, requires more tending to, and was built in the 1970s in NC. I'll leave a lot of that to your imagination, but I've put a lot of electrical work in it, some plumbing, and my wife and I built a barn on it (a skill I'd learned in graduate school). It hasn't been much of a burden, and my skill set really expanded over the years. But currently (as I look out my office window here), I see the 40' trench that got dug last week to open up the septic leach field. That will likely get fixed some time next week when the weather lets up a bit.

Yes, the joys of home ownership. But I still think it beats the alternatives -- plus I have this HUGE collection of tools of all sorts.

[Doug Elliott]

Open up that whole corner box - it's not much work to replace the drywall - and insulate it correctly while fixing.the plumbing.
I had to put in a corner box just like that when I built my house, to enclose the radon pipe from the basement slab to the roof, and I also ran the refrigerant lines for the heat pump through the same box to the air handler in the attic. And the roof is insulated at R34, so the attic is interior temperature.

[AndrewMeronek]

Open up that whole corner box - it's not much work to replace the drywall - and insulate it correctly while fixing.the plumbing.

Yeah, that's today's project. Fortunately I have some boxes laying around to put all that insulation.

[AndrewMeronek]

I want to let a plumber do the more proper fix, but for now stretch tape and hose clamps seems to do the job. I still don't want to put that under full pressure, though.

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Yes, this is also my trombone practicing area. Relevancy!!!

[ghmerrill]

... but for now stretch tape and hose clamps seems to do the job.

Ya do what ya gotta do.

In our first house, I made a new bathroom on the second floor (moving the tub and shower) and changed the first floor bathroom to a half-bath -- using PVC for the new work and compression fittings to the old copper pipes because I had no experience in soldering plumbing at that point and didn't want to take a chance on that.

That's the point at which I also learned about a ratcheting chain cutter (and that you could rent tools from hardware stores!!) -- in order to tap into the cast iron stack for the new upstairs bathroom. To do that I used a 4" rubber "Y" connecting boot from the original iron stack to the new 4" PVC secondary drain from the second floor -- which was basically a larger version of your rubber tube and hose clamp approach (though not on a pressure line ). The rubber boot on the drain line actually satisfied code. I'm pretty sure your rubber tube splice doesn't, but it should last just fine until something more permanent can be done.

[AndrewMeronek]

The plumber fixed it properly!!!

He actually got out faster than I thought he would, given how many people I imagined were in their queue for broken pipes due to this winter weather.

That spray foam insulation is a real PITA. And now I know what is probably behind the rest of the 1st floor walls . . .

[AndrewMeronek]

I'm pretty sure your rubber tube splice doesn't, but it should last just fine until something more permanent can be done.

That was actually Flex Tape. It stopped the drip, but I'm pretty sure if I had put full pressure on it, that it would have popped like a balloon.

[ghmerrill]

The plumber fixed it properly!!!

Just out of curiosity ... did he repair/replace the copper section, or replace it with PEX?

[robcat2075]

About 25 years ago i came home from an event to hear a loud "sssss" and find water dripping from the ceiling of the dining room. I turned off the water in the alley and got a plumber out the next day.

Some thirsty woodland creature had gnawed through a pipe.

After agreeing to the proposed $230 charge, I watched him saw out a section of pipe, smear some purple stuff and some goo on new pieces of plastic and slide it all together. That was the day i decided i would learn to fix things in this house myself.

I have my house's water shut off, and am trying to find a shutoff valve for this set of pipes,

Several years ago i needed to replace a leaky shutoff valve in a bathroom so i went down to the cellar wanting to turn off water to just that part of the house. One strong twist on a valve and the whole manifold (top) began dripping in five different places. 100 year old plumbing doesn't like being jostled.

I had to rebuild the thing with nice new modern PVC (bottom). I can't imagine what the professional plumber cost would have been

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[ghmerrill]

@robocat: That's a real panorama of plumbing technology you've got there. Museum-like display.

The brickwork also looks a great deal like what was under the first house we got. It had been built in the 1920s, originally with a dirt basement and brick column support as in your picture, fronting a sort of crawlspace just like yours (the basement didn't continue all the way to the front of the house).

The slab concrete floor that had been poured directly over the original dirt one had long since degraded by the mid 1970s and the basement would then fill with water to a depth of about a foot or so. Knowing nothing (or not thinking much about it) hydrodynamics under such circumstances, I hopefully thought that putting a good coating of epoxy finish on the slab and up the walls would address the problem. Nope. Open seams all around -- and hydraulic pressure just blew the new finish off the old degraded concrete anyway. Just before we moved out and sold the house (my having left academia for a pursuit that actually paid real money), I put in a sump pump, and that at least solved the flooding problem, though left the structure as it was. I tend to view those years as another sort of extended education that's proved useful in life. My wife maintains it's why we still have nightmares about old houses.

Oh, yeah ... That house also retained a substantial amount of tube & post wiring.

Well, I left it a lot better than I found it. Every now and then I go on Google Maps and look at it (it's still there). About six years of my life are in it somewhere.

[BrassSection]

I’ll stick with our 1830s farm house. Pretty much rebuilt the whole place.

[ghmerrill]

I’ll stick with our 1830s farm house. Pretty much rebuilt the whole place.

I know what that took!! ... In graduate school I worked part-time on the Angus farm owned/run by the chairman of my department -- general farm labor (@ $2/hr and all I could eat): mowing, fence mending, plowing, baling (on excitingly pitched hillsides), cleaning out barns/stalls, etc. The house was an early 19th century 2-story stone house (still there outside Lyons, NY), and he had redone the interior -- including oak floors where he drilled every hole for the nails. Then, of course, the plumbing and electrical, and interior niceties, windows, etc.

[robcat2075]

A cold weather modification i have made is to detour the water for the kitchen so it goes to the washing machine connections first, then to the sink, instead of each having its own branch.

During a freeze I can leave the kitchen sink running and keep the washer lies thawed out as well. It was never feasible to keep a washing machine drawing water 24/7.

[BrassSection]

I’ll stick with our 1830s farm house. Pretty much rebuilt the whole place.

I know what that took!! ... In graduate school I worked part-time on the Angus farm owned/run by the chairman of my department -- general farm labor (@ $2/hr and all I could eat): mowing, fence mending, plowing, baling (on excitingly pitched hillsides), cleaning out barns/stalls, etc. The house was an early 19th century 2-story stone house (still there outside Lyons, NY), and he had redone the interior -- including oak floors where he drilled every hole for the nails. Then, of course, the plumbing and electrical, and interior niceties, windows, etc.

Several loads of plaster removed thru the years, plank house, 2x3 hand hewn studs 18” centers gave way to 2x4 studs on 16” centers, insulate throughout, new HVAC systems with proper ductwork instead of old gravity feed “Making do”, upgraded 60 amp electric service to 200 amp, complete with 100 amp sub panel that is fed either from main panel, or whole house generator, I rewired the whole house, so long knob and tube, repiped the whole house, replaced all 13 original arch top windows with custom made vinyl, along with 4 other regular shaped double hung windows, upgraded exterior doors, and went from one bathroom to 2.5 bathrooms with a 2 story addition that also moved laundry out of the low basement. Was ok for 5’2 wife, but being 5’12, I have to duck a lot down there. New siding and new metal roofing, Flattened several floors and ceilings.