Winter Tips for Plumbing

[tw]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

85% of the houses around here were built in the early 1800s and are uninsulated.

Then insulate it. Or, even better, get a kid to insulate it. 1800 vintage foundations can be plastered and fixed. Living in a home with defects does not justify those defect. Eliminating such problems are easy and often inexpensive. Pipes freeze when a defect is ignored.

Just because that makes you angry does not mean it is wrong or is an attack. It is a simple reality that applies to any old house that exists in a 21st Century modern society. Moving pipes to not freeze and installing insulation is now so easy that even teenagers can do it. You can get angry or you can eliminate the problem with trivial solutions.

If a frost line is 4 feet, then water pipes were buried more than 4 feet. Or that line is reburied deeper. How often are street mains freezing? Never. Because proper and standard workmanship is used.

Obviously that is not an attack. But some get angry (emotional) rather than realize a problem need not exist. The solution is so easy that you should be saying, "Good idea." Or should be asking for better ways to elminate a problem that need not exist. That is a logical response.

The house is historic because "George Washington slept here". Heat is turned down every night. That 1700s house has minimal changes (because it is historic) They did maintenance using proper workmanship. So its water pipes do not freeze.

Simple solutions never justified such an emotional outburst.