3 inches of snow, record low temperatures here in SE New Mexico.
I had a grueling commute to my office from the house this morning, navigating almost 30 feet of treacherous sidewalk. Handfuls of thrown birdseed did help my slippers grip better.
HOt water is frozen in two houses, so our swat plumber got dispatched. Why is it always the HOT water that freezes?
The schools are closed, and office staff did not come in. The wind is howling and the whole town is hunkered down and not moving.
Roads are pretty bad, highways are fine. All the stores and schools are closed. We got about 5-6 inches of snow with like… 1/4 inch of frozen rain on top of that. Pretty bad.
I guess like 50 miles north of my aread (Chicago area) got hit with like … 16-20 inches of snow. Looks like I barely missed that :biggrin
Dodged the bullet in the DC area…we were on the warm side oof the front. We got rain only and now it’s about 50 degrees. But the cold side of the front got hammered.
NYC…not bad…alot of rain…some icey roads and steps,sidewalks this morning but not as bad as predicted…hardly any snow…we dodged the bullet…and the groundhog said spring is on its way…time to prepay the beachclub membership…
Here in the North East, we’ve received record snow falls, lots of snow on the side of the roads and roofs, but the roads are good. Pretty soon all this snow will be gone and we’ll be dealing with flooding issues…
On the positive side of things, I’ve sold 2 snow blowers and made some nice cash…these things are like shovels to gold diggers right now… :bobble
Our houses here are not built for such cold weather.
Three today with frozen pipes. One nurse is heating water on the stove for a sponge bath. I am going to deliver water to flush the toilet. She doesn’t want to go to a hotel.
If a tenant has to go to a hotel, they pay for that, but we don’t charge for the days the house is uninhabitable. We have another full day of below-freezing temperature.
It was 25 degrees in Houston last night. We are not set up for that either. My houses have tenants in them and if they keep warm the pipes are usually ok. It is going to be cold for the next few nights also.
Our houses here are not built for such cold weather.
Three today with frozen pipes
Have your contractor wrap those pipes up with water pipe insulation. If stores don’t sell it down there, look on homedepot.com or lowes.com and you should be able to get it.
REIER,
I appreciate your tips on wrapping the pipes, and we sure have started doing more of that.
But what do you do with a little cottage, built in 1943, that has water pipes, hanging under the wood floors, in the 12" crawl space?
We have gotten diligent about covering the under-house vents with wood covers, now I’m thinking we should talk insulating foam to the inside of those vent covers.
Our plumber just thawed the water pipe to the kitchen sink, so now the tenant doesn’t have to melt snow in order to flush the toilet. :smile :flush
But what do you do with a little cottage, built in 1943, that has water pipes, hanging under the wood floors, in the 12" crawl space?
We have gotten diligent about covering the under-house vents with wood covers, now I’m thinking we should talk insulating foam to the inside of those vent covers.
Our plumber just thawed the water pipe to the kitchen sink, so now the tenant doesn’t have to melt snow in order to flush the
Have him install an electric heat cable on those pipes. That should do the trick.
REIER,
Do you know an unemployed garden gnome who would like to crawl under that house? To put on the heat cable? Does it have to run the length of the pipes?
My parents are w/o power in central IL. Got about 20" total. Luckily they have a fireplace and dry wood. A lady from the next block over came to stay with them since at least they have heat.
FO: Tell your tenants to keep the cabinet doors open or at least cracked for under your sinks. The heat from the house will circulate better in there. You can also unthaw pipes with a hair dryer (if they’re frozen where you can get to them). The heat won’t be as extreme as taking a torch to it. Also - a slight drip from the faucet helps to keep the water from freezing.
Thanks, justin. Didn’t know the cabinet trick. The 4th tenant has just phoned in–NO WATER!
We did send emails to all our tenants yesterday telling them to let their faucets drip. It’s just so darned cold that nothing is working. The plumber apparently uses a long extension cord and a blowing heater to thaw pipes.
If anyone else calls this evening they are just going to have to tough it out or go to a hotel. They can drink beer instead of water, after all. And batheing is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I’m running out of room to put the snow up here in Mass… ENOUGH ALREADY!! :banghead Tired from taking the snow off the roof, then moving it aside… Good thingI have snowblower… On a positive note I get to play “king of the hill” with my boys (7 and 4 yrs old)… I won again today and they’re sleeping like babies from the whoopin’ I laid on them!! :biggrin… They’ll bounce bak quicker than me tomorrow…
Despite the bad weather this year has been pretty tame. It was the bad weather last year when I had my hands full. I was in the middle of rehabbing a small rancher on a crawlspace in an area with notoriously bad drainage. When I bought it the crawl had about 18inches of water in it due to a burned out sump pump and the freeze/thaw cycle over many years had chewed up about a 15 foot section of foundation that the outside water used to lie against, before it crumbled. Once I replaced the sump it ran almost constantly for several weeks as the surface water poured through rotted foundation. It was a real treat to be working in that crawl to install new plumbing and fix the termite damage. I didn’t get the foundation repaired until spring. I went through 4 plastic jump suits on that job. I installed about 150 ft of exterior french drain in the fall to keep as much water out of the property as possible.