Episode 177: Winter pipes

spk_0:   0:01
Hello, everybody.

spk_1:   0:02
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. The big. So the snowy cold show. It's cold. I mean, he is co

spk_0:   0:10
calling from the icebox

spk_1:   0:12
Collier, where the ice backs were in north Missouri. And it's cold here. As you know, we took a trip to Florida because you go away for the winter. You go south, you don't go north. We love Canada. We love going to Camden with the Thunder Bay. We love Ontario. All all parts of Canada we've ever been to in July. Yeah, July. That's when you go to Canada. Isn't that is good. And jelly like because. But, you know, part of the deal is here in the Midwest. Sometimes Canada comes to visit us. Sometimes Canadian Air comes to visit us. And I'm not talking about the airline. Well, they do fly into Kansas City. I do believe.

spk_0:   0:54
I hope they don't land anywhere near us.

spk_1:   0:56
I hope they don't. So don't have any commercial. What happens when it gets cold? Is things freeze?

spk_0:   1:03
I bet you didn't know

spk_1:   1:04
that. Yeah, Okay. That's my gift to you as a prepping guru, which I'm not, but things Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit zero degrees centigrade and so does the stuff in your house If it's not heated and therein lies a prepping problem, what you gonna do if the electricity goes out?

spk_0:   1:34
So here we were, down in Florida, hanging out on the beach, walking

spk_1:   1:39
68 70 degrees were beautiful

spk_0:   1:41
walking on the beach ashore. It's first thing in the morning. Get back, check out what's going on in the world Post from 16 in my Facebook, friends about busted pipes in their basements and water running all over the place. And

spk_1:   1:53
and we're in Florida and we're like, Okay, that would be bad. And these are people who are at home, and these are people who have not had power outages and these air houses that have been through winters before, So we have a cascading set of events here. Our first thought is, uh oh, are we in trouble? But then we stopped and thought about it, because we have. We were prepped for this very situation.

spk_0:   2:28
Frankly, we thought about it before we left. We didn't know it was going to get down to minus 15 minus two. It

spk_1:   2:33
wasn't supposed to do that. It got down to minus 15 point five. I believe it was at the local weather station. Victim buoyed by below zero. And that's pretty cold. You know, when people talk about the windshield factor, this is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I am not the person to talk about the wind chill factor, too, because I think it is. I did. It drives me nuts because people want to make things seem worse than they are. Okay, if you're walking around, you have exposed skin. Yes. When Phil does make a difference, it doesn't make one bit of difference to an automobile. It doesn't make one bit of difference to you sitting inside your house. Yes, the wind can blow and cause some air leakage into your house. So there is that. But she kind of she shaking her head the other way. She's a wind chill factor. Freak or something? I don't know.

spk_0:   3:22
No, it only matters when things were wet. Write anything that's wet is subject to extra chilling from evaporation of wind. But things that are dry don't care.

spk_1:   3:33
Hey, let me help you. She's talking about liquid wet, not frozen wet. Yeah, So you know, if you got a sheet of ice covering the roof of your house. It doesn't care what the wind chill factor is. Windchill factor basically is important for animals because they're out in it and they have. You know, they perspire and they have body moisture around them. It's important for people, and mostly it's important for exposed skin. Now, windshield fact. People use that as a uh, It's kind of, Ah, thing about the wind is really blowing hard, and it makes it feel extra cult. That's true. But in a situation where you're talking about inside of a house, you're talking about pipes. Freezing makes zero difference. Whatever the wind chill factor, it's the actual physical cold that we're talking about that we need. But at minus 15.5, that's plenty cold even worry about, you know Oh my gosh, the wind is 15.5 below, but that winds blow. It makes it feel like 23 below. So what? It's cold. It's darn cold. It's Dad. Gum cold is cold. We get it.

spk_0:   4:45
We hadn't known it was gonna be 15 below what he left, but what would known it was winter in Missouri.

spk_1:   4:50
So we had prepped for it. What happens in winter in Missouri? It gets cold. Okay, What else happens in winter in Missouri? Ice. A lot of it. What happens when you get ice? You get trees with bowing limbs, right? And what happens when trees who are deteriorating get a bowing limb? Boom with limb falls off, it hits the power line, power line goes down and it drops power for X amount of people. Power outages in rural Missouri in the winter are exceedingly common. At least one or two a winter,

spk_0:   5:26
especially when you get a realize storm and the lines themselves get so heavy with ice that they just break themselves without a need for a tree.

spk_1:   5:33
Very, very common event. This is not a We always talk about probabilities whether you prep first for the high probability events that you know we're gonna happen. Severe weather, ice storms, snow, uh, just kind of flooding. At least flash flooding enough to you may live on a hill, but you will drive through valleys. And so this may cut off your communication. You may not be able to get from one town to another because of flooding. For for us where the place is located. We have a specific route we have to take if it's flooding, because there's only one way into it. If it's flooding

spk_0:   6:13
others about three routes, depending on the level of flooding being experienced around with full

spk_1:   6:21
blown flooding. There's one way in and one way out.

spk_0:   6:24
And it's a very long way around

spk_1:   6:25
well from us. But if we lived in the other direction, it would be the shortest way. So, you know anyway, long story short, we know Isis gonna happen. We know power outages air gonna happen. So what we have to do is preppers is prepped for that situation and we need to factor in one other event or one other fat. We put in one other factors in transit. We also know that we travel a lot and we may not be home when this happens. So we have to prep for that.

spk_0:   7:00
We were told the last time the tornado style winds dropped a chunk of tree on her house.

spk_1:   7:06
Yeah, we were at home when the tornado actually just hit town. We did have a tornado hit town north part of town. We weren't home, so it's because we travel a lot. If something happened right now at home, we're on the road. You can hear is the road noise. I apologize about that. We can't broadcast what were in the car. So let's talk about some of the things that we have done to prepare for the situation. So you want to start with some of the more the war I was. The important thing is that we've done

spk_0:   7:39
first thought. Thing we thought about was pipes freezing because that's always a risk when it gets cold. So the main thing about that was, our main heat is electric. Our backup heat is propane with a wall heater that doesn't need a blower, so it doesn't need electricity to run.

spk_1:   7:55
Our house is very small. Let's put it that way. We have a smiles. We don't worry. We're just a couple. We don't have kids. And so we got basically A. We live in kitchen in three rooms and a bathroom. Reasons way have more than that, but that's what we live in. So that's all we have to worry about heating.

spk_0:   8:14
So we know we turned our electric heat down to 0 60 or so because nobody was gonna be around to care.

spk_1:   8:20
I would have left it higher had I known it was going to be that cold just because just

spk_0:   8:26
so that you could spread through the house more. But we also turned the wall heater, which is propane and doesn't need electric. We turned it on on a low setting. Normally, it doesn't come on at all. But if the heat went out, the electric heat went out and how started Chill down. That one will pop on anyway,

spk_1:   8:44
right? It's the kind of just that, you know, if this is the kind of if you were to have a heater on a sailboat that has no electricity, think of a large sailboat heater. That's what this is. This is a kind of heater that doesn't require any electricity. Whatever. There's no fan, there's no blower. All it requires is to have propane. And we got one of those 500 gallon tanks in the back yard, and it's full every winner. We always make sure it's full, and

spk_0:   9:12
it's nice going into a winner. Note. Knowing you wouldn't freeze for the whole winner of

spk_1:   9:15
this is you want to see

spk_0:   9:17
our went out there

spk_1:   9:18
prepping, Ah, moments, spices, because we turn this off in the summer because you don't want to waste the gas. Not only that, we actually go out and literally turn the gas off, so there's no chance of it leaking out and we turn the gas up. So when we turn it back on, it takes quite a bit of time for the gas to come from the big £500 propane tank into getting where we can like the heater.

spk_0:   9:47
Because all the gases diffused out of the line over the summer.

spk_1:   9:51
So and we have two or three shut off outs that we use and that look on her face when the pilot light finally kicks on and it's on and we turned the knob and the thing starts up is gonna have the dusty smell because there's no way you can keep that thing clean. I mean, you know, I tried covering it. You still get the dust of the thing, so you get the first. The first whiff is that dusty smell that goes away after five minutes. I mean, it's our it's not filthy or anything. It's just and that look on her face is almost beautification. She sees I'm going to have heat this winter, no matter what. I have a full tank. I have a heater that's working, upset. I've got this covered for another winter.

spk_0:   10:45
And we always do that in October, which is earlier than we really need heat up here.

spk_1:   10:50
Because if we need to fix it way

spk_0:   10:53
have time to fix it.

spk_1:   10:54
We have time to fix it that way. We do not depend on it working like now,

spk_0:   10:59
if not checking. Yeah, that's happening for it. Died over a summer.

spk_1:   11:02
Yeah, we had to replace it and that, you know that that's fine. Sure, it's cost of doing business, but yeah, if you're If you're looking for a something look, a sailboat supplies. If you're looking for this kind of heater, you know, they can also get like ventless heaters, the hardware store. You get all these others. And if there are options now, keep in mind, we're talking about using this as a backup heat system. We're not talking about heating your whole house with the thing. You can do that. Um, it tends to cause humidity problems. If you do that,

spk_0:   11:38
I wouldn't also want a combustion heater as my main heat source when the house wasn't invented. Now is bundling it up as tight as possible for winter for low airflow, I'd start thinking about oxygen level's dropping in getting carbon monoxide. We do have a carbon monoxide monitor

spk_1:   11:54
actually have to. Yeah, we're two things. Every home should have. Multiple two sets of things multiple. This is no matter what kind of heat you have, because other ways of getting carbon monoxide the car could be left running in the garage if you haven't been in a crash house. All kinds of bouldering fires, smoldering fires a little, Yeah, at least two carbon monoxide detectors, a fire, a fire alarm in every room. And we don't have a fire alarm in every room of the house is so open. But we have three and finally use five room. So yeah, so that is that is a critically important thing. So that's one of the things we've done. What else? If we don't

spk_0:   12:41
for the room that is most likely to get cold is Thea bathroom? We had a electric heater set on low just in that particular room to keep that room warmer than average

spk_1:   12:53
right now, when we say electric heater, we don't use the ones that blow air we use. Okay, there's all kinds of thinking behind this. And the 1500 watt of energy transfer is 1500 watts of energy transfer, you know, is the infrared. There's just all kinds of stuff, the ones we prefer, because this is the bathroom we're talking about and we get the shower in there. There's a lot of water involved, and so we just basically, you know, leave the little heater in there. It's one of those 1500 watt radiators. It's a radiator heat, so there's no electrical stuff to get whipped.

spk_0:   13:36
The electric is used to a warm the oil, and then the warm oil that's running through the radiator actually radiates the heat

spk_1:   13:43
way like those better than pretty much everything else. We've also got another one that we can set up in the kitchen if we're going to be a way, is just a backup sort of sister. But against electric, both of these are electric. So what we do is we leave the doors open, captain indoors, Cabinet doors, stuff like that and the bathroom door in case we have to depend upon the backup emergency heater kicking up. And so we let it set. We have left it set on low when we went away, but it was on. We tested it, made sure it was working. And then it got cold. So we're good

spk_0:   14:24
and we came home to a warm house.

spk_1:   14:26
It was actually warmer than I thought it was gonna be. You could tell the backup heater had been kicking on because it was 68 in the house and we had it set to 60. Now our our our thing runs a little wacky. You have to set it a little lower than it actually gets. So, you know, we want if you want a 72 of the room. He said it 64. It's just weird, But as long as you know what it's doing, it really doesn't matter what you said it as long as you know you have a comfortable temperature, and I I don't like a hothouse. Anyway. I'm calm, Cool freak. I like cool things.

spk_0:   14:57
That's what I was just thinking. He hasn't wanted the room, said it 72 degrees in the long as I've known him.

spk_1:   15:03
Yeah, I roasted by that. I just don't like it. Um, so and those things that we do is keep ceiling fans running all winter long, so it distributes to heat.

spk_0:   15:14
Yeah, no reason to spend to heat the air at the ceiling. And you're cold on the floor. That was the main thing.

spk_1:   15:20
There's other things to that we have done in the past that that don't necessarily translate to what a lot of people think of, but I think are critically important. We when we bought the house, we have an old house. It's an older house and it was built in the twenties. And our house is kind of weird in the fact that it used to have in the bathroom and had a bathtub. And the bathtub lines were right up against the outside wall. And we always had a problem with those freezing. It would freeze. It was So, um, when we remodeled the interior of the bathroom and that whole area, the closet area, we did a whole bunch of stuff. We expanded the bathroom, took out half a closet, blah blah, blah. But when we did that, we changed where all the pipes ran. To get them away from that wall, we removed the bathtub entirely. Put in a shower instead. Now those pipes run up inside the inside wall. It's eight feet six feet away from the outside window.

spk_0:   16:28
So if you have to remodel your house anyway, that's one thing to look at is where the water lines are routed because a lot of people who had him run close to walls.

spk_1:   16:36
And if you're in the climb when you're actually buying a house, if you if you want to take a good look, find out where all those water lines run, because those are what you really have to worry about freezing and just causing a delay. Cious mess Now used to be They used to have baseboard hot water heat, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you never, ever used this system in a house in a northern climate. Because if that is your heater and if the electricity goes out, you got water pipes running every room of your house.

spk_0:   17:13
And for those of you who have never experienced this problem, when the pipes freeze, it's not just oh, I don't have any water until the pipes throughout, because water expands when it freezes. And if very much of a pipe freezes and it's not a really thick walled pipe, it'll split the pipe right open, and then you come in, you turn on the taps. Dang, my lines froze. Oh, well, I'm sure I'll have water. And after the heat wave hits in a couple days, know what you get is a flood in the basement, as as soon as the pipe style, they start spewing water all over the place from the pipes that split when they were frozen

spk_1:   17:50
or split inside the wall. And then you get soaked inside of your wallet. You know,

spk_0:   17:56
when your gold problems floor

spk_1:   17:58
problems have destroyed walls, you just here in your house, half apart. Well, insurance companies will cover that. Yeah, maybe

spk_0:   18:06
not. Adequately. Not if you get witness in a wall and stuff. They will fix the most overt of the damage generally. But if you get mold problems or disintegration,

spk_1:   18:17
I want a giant giant roll. Okay, we're driving past a place with the giant giant cinnamon rolls. Delicious, Really good. But my gosh to the size of a plate, So just ask her. We want to stop and get her role. I don't

spk_0:   18:29
We always actually want a role. But there's the things we cannot eat regularly.

spk_1:   18:32
I don't care for cinnamon rolls. I know I may even

spk_0:   18:35
how you know, all of his.

spk_1:   18:37
She told me. Um, okay. Another thing to think about is if you're looking to do to build a house or or you're looking to buy a house, Look at your pipe. Clustering. What I mean by that is generally all a lot of people don't really think about this, but it's true. And if you're the construction trade, you're gonna roll your eyes. I apologize because it seems so obvious to you pretty much every houses, every house, but a lot of houses designed. So But all of the plumbing is in just one part of the house in our house because the way the kitchen is laid out, because the way where our laundry room is wait laid out because where the bathroom is, the whole plumbing system doesn't run Maur than 20 feet from one side to the other. I mean, it's just all right. In one spot is just everything is Oh, like the where the washing machine sits, is on the back side of the bathroom, and the other side of that wall is the kitchen where the sink is. It's just how it was built. It makes a lot of sense. One of the one of the really best part about this. If you have an older houses, it makes re plumbing the entire house dead simple and relatively inexpensive. And we did that. We reported to the entire house. It's part of our renovation project. We've replaced all the electrical in the house, right? All new boxes, stuff like that new roof. Once we have to put another roof on it again because we lived here for almost 30 years. I mean, it's not like the old roof was bad. It was just a 30 year roof. And it's been 30 years. Spencer, you hear stuff

spk_0:   20:19
so I know where your water shut off. Vows are

spk_1:   20:22
absolutely every American homeowner needs to know how to pay. Shut the water off and B, if in an emergency drained the system tank. Look in our house, we have the bathroom. We have the way. We have a basement. So we have the bathroom. We have the kitchen with the laundry room and right underneath it since the water heater, okay. And the water comes into our house and we have a drink. Eh? Maine to shut off Out is just right there. It's all right in that one area. Know, right where it is, the only other pipe that we have. And this is something you gotta watch for. If you're not familiar with this, maybe I'll teach us up. Most people know this, but not everybody. Let's say you have a faucet going to the outside. Almost all of these are, especially if they're, I think even Florida people use a You use the frost free faucets

spk_0:   21:29
they hope they're using this week

spk_1:   21:31
up the ark. It it's in the twenties and in northern Florida. The freeze, the freeze free pot frog faucets for, you know, your host spigot. But it's important. This is very important because Spice didn't do this one. So

spk_0:   21:46
yeah, I didn't know this either. In the hardware,

spk_1:   21:48
we ended up busting a pipe. You have to unhook the hose from the frost free, pause it every year before winter hits. It's critically important. Unhook that owes because that faucet can freeze if that hose is booked. If that hose is there, the pressure can remain enough pressure to keep water in

spk_0:   22:12
it. Cost free really means that the water drains backed down out of the exposed pipe,

spk_1:   22:18
keeping a hose on it can, especially if you have another end on the hose. You know there's water in the hose that's a continuous loop. It doesn't train back, so always make it a point now. It won't do it every time, but it can do it. We know it could do it because it happened to us. And, boy, that you talk about a surprise. You you turn on the you turn on the water and because of how this works, the actual valve in these frost free spigots are, I think, foot 18 inches back into the house. So that section of pipe between where the valve is and where the faucet is is where the bust can happen. And if it does, man, it will spray your house or basement with. Trust me, it will do it. And this this ours had a good inch bust in it. So anyway, that's just something to watch. A lot of people don't know that one, and it's true. And unfortunately, it's happened. Us that was not a not a uh you don't have to Snopes that.

spk_0:   23:25
So if you do come home and you turn on the taps and they're not flowing and it's cold, you closed the taps backup, you go find your main water valve, you shut down that valve, then you work on thought out the pipes. And then while somebody is paying attention to what the pipes air doing, you go and try the faucets again if they just start flowing and there's no water coming out of pipe any everywhere, life is good. If you start getting water spraying over all over the basement or whatever, then you go and shut the main valve off again and call the plumber.

spk_1:   24:00
Right now, she's saying, I thought the pipes were talking about throwing out the pipes by setting up a heater nearby and warming up the room. I'm not going to say you know, there's other ways of doing it with some of them are really dangerous, and you gotta know what you're doing. You could burn your house down with a torch

spk_0:   24:21
in my Red Cross work This week, I found three separate cases where people burn their houses down by using hold my beer and watch this methods of pipe going. One guy was using a welding torch set on low to try and thought his pipes out and he said, It's house on fire already then so don't be that guy.

spk_1:   24:48
Yeah, I mean, you gives, really? When you if I were doing it since I'm not ultra handyman, my way of thought a pipe that would be would be to inspect it as well as I could to ensure that it had not busted. If it had busted, I would find a shut off valve and not even know it's time to get the pipes fixed. And if you could do that, that's fine. If you can't, well, then you need to know what you need to D'oh! But if you can't find any, um, you put a heater. This is how I would do it. I'm not I'm not a plumber. I do not. This is not a recommendation. I'm just saying what I would do.

spk_0:   25:27
We have done it before with success

spk_1:   25:28
for way back when before we have this all rearranged, figured out

spk_0:   25:33
we're not gonna

spk_1:   25:33
deter nearby, but out of any line of spray that could happen if I missed a busted the pipe. So

spk_0:   25:49
that man is eyes fishing. He's drilling a hole is drilling in his bond with a nice augur.

spk_1:   25:55
Good for him. Good luck to him Would be a nice day for ice fishing if

spk_0:   26:00
you're rid

spk_1:   26:01
of that. So that's just a touch of the thought. Anything else,

spk_0:   26:07
Dad? That's basically what we did to make sure the house was appropriately winterized for exit,

spk_1:   26:18
you know, And, of course, everything we're talking about here, if you have a 500 gallon and I recommend if you're gonna be having Kirsten depends on your codes, your laws, that kind of stuff, I recommend if you're going to be having ah, backup heat system, that'll be bottle fed. Not depending upon a utility to deliver natural gas line has to be propane. It needs to be a bottle. Whatever size bottle you wanna work. If you want to go with short term, you can get one of these little heaters like we use its cabin. Uh, we'll use the cabin where I get it installed. Just the usual bottle heaters. I would sleep with the thing on, but I'd be perfectly find a toe work with it on your bottle heater. You know, £20 propane bottle goes in, the in the back of it sits there and brothers, and it works deep cabin up. So again, pro pay. Any time you have any of that stuff cannot do without having carbon monoxide, Peter, any kind of open flame, anything, including a gas cook stove. You need a carbon monoxide, your oven's gas you need a carbon monoxide detector. And the good news is, they used to be really expensive, but now they're not anymore there. Very inexpensive. 20 bucks or last. So you got anything else for us, or we're gonna hang this one up.

spk_0:   27:50
We're good. That's what we wanted to do this time. All right. Thank you. And

spk_1:   27:54
we'll get you next time. Which