Winter Tips for Plumbing

[xoxoxoBruce]

I suspect we're a long way from hearing the fat lady sing this winter's swan song. And since it's been extra cold in places they usually see only moderate cold, plumbing vigilance is a wise idea.

The New York Times has some advice how you can keep plumbing gremlins from creeping up on you.

Q. O.K., so I live in the Connecticut suburbs in a normal house, and it’s ridiculously cold outside right now. How worried should I be about my pipes bursting?

A. Not nearly as worried as someone in Nashville. Northern plumbers put water supply lines in rather protected areas, but Southern plumbers have been much more careless about that. If the frequency of freezing-pipe incidents surpasses the institutional memory of the area, you’re in real trouble.

But still we hear the horror stories even up north — or at least here in the northeast, where really severe cold isn’t the norm. How do I avoid becoming the star of a horror story?

It helps to understand how pipes burst. The way that happens doesn’t follow conventional wisdom, which says water turns to ice and pushes outward against the wall of the pipe and causes a rupture. The blockage grows along the length of the pipe and acts like a piston, causing elevated water pressure when the faucet is turned off, and that’s what causes the rupture. So if you can relieve the pressure downstream of the blockage by allowing the tiniest little drip at the faucet, then the ice blockage can grow and it won’t rupture the pipe.

Etc.... etc.... etc....