The weather

[propane1]

Jumpins she’s cold out. -27C now. -42C wind chill. 55 kilometre gusts. Later today 90 kilometre gusts. Warming up to -19C with -35C wind chill. Highway snow plow going up and down road as I write this. Was, is and will be blowing snow all day.
Stay inside and warm if your in the same deep freeze I’m in.

Noel

[MattA]

We hit -10°F (-23°C) here last night. Certainly the coldest by a few degrees that I've had at my house in the past 6 years + the wind chill. I set the heat up 2°F higher (66°F) on my 1st floor last night and opened the kitchen sink cabinets as a precaution to help keep the sink pipes from freezing and the cold water froze I tried putting an electric heater on low in the cabinet on low but that didn't work. Also tried using a hair dryer down the pipe holes but I previously insulated and spray foamed under the cabinet. Ended up taking down some insulation in the basement over the door to my bulkhead where the pipes run before going up to the sink. I couldn't reach the area where the pipes froze but I was able to blow hot air in for about 2 minutes and the water began flowing again. is happy now.
I've previously added pipe insulation (2014 built house didn't have it ), added some spray foam and put up two layers of rigid insulation sealed with more spray foam. That seems to work down into the single digit temps (°F) but I think the real solution is to reroute the pipes under the kitchen sink cabinet over the floor and then down into the basement not in the bulkhead area.
End ramble...

[JSinMO]

Frozen pipes are no fun. I had that happen one time. I really couldn’t reroute the line. I was able to wrap the pipe in two layers of heat tape, and just plug it in when the temps dropped. It solved the problem.

[MattA]

My pipes are all plastic aside from around the water heater. I've thought about leaving the water running at a slow drip. Just enough to move the water through the pipes. Problem is the drain also runs into the wall and I think nearby in the bulkhead area.

[Eugen]

Oh Matt, I feel for you. We had a pipe freezing situational this year too. Half a Saturday took me to thaw it and the diesel heater was a hero. Good thing you solved it without too much trouble.

[DavidBarkey]

My pipes are all plastic aside from around the water heater. I've thought about leaving the water running at a slow drip. Just enough to move the water through the pipes. Problem is the drain also runs into the wall and I think nearby in the bulkhead area.

Matt are you able to run a 3-4" flex duct from furnace pipe into the bulk head ?

[MattA]

My pipes are all plastic aside from around the water heater. I've thought about leaving the water running at a slow drip. Just enough to move the water through the pipes. Problem is the drain also runs into the wall and I think nearby in the bulkhead area.

Matt are you able to run a 3-4" flex duct from furnace pipe into the bulk head ?

Dave the HVAC system is up in the attic. I'd rather it be in the basement so that I could circulate the basement air and I could add a humidifier right to the HVAC system.

[MattA]

Oh Matt, I feel for you. We had a pipe freezing situational this year too. Half a Saturday took me to thaw it and the diesel heater was a hero. Good thing you solved it without too much trouble.

Hopefully you didn't have any pipes burst. My parents had renters back in the early 80's that went to Florida for the winter and left the heat off in am upstate NY house. Every pipe froze and split in dozens of places.

[Eugen]

Oh Matt, I feel for you. We had a pipe freezing situational this year too. Half a Saturday took me to thaw it and the diesel heater was a hero. Good thing you solved it without too much trouble.

Hopefully you didn't have any pipes burst. My parents had renters back in the early 80's that went to Florida for the winter and left the heat off in am upstate NY house. Every pipe froze and split in dozens of places.

Didn't burst Matt, though it is an exterior drain pipe for grey water, ABS. Somehow it ended up with an 8' belly on a segment and I didn't notice. All our water copper pipes in the crawl space seem fine no matter how cold, but we do have some heating there.

[MattA]

Part of the proble I have is literally nothing in my basement generates substantial heat. Heating system is in the attic and the hot water on demand is in the basement (both are propane). Temps in my basement are in the 40's to low 50's if the weather is nice outside. After several days of single digit outdoor temps, my basement gets into the high 30's. When this happens I plug in the electric heater. Temp was 42F when I was thawing out the pipe Saturday morning.

Weather forecast is 58F here on Friday