Cold, Cold, Cold
When I left Cary yesterday morning with a U-Haul truck full of stuff, it was a chilly 20°F or so. Upon arriving at the shop in downtown Sparta, I found the front window covered on the inside with a layer of ice. After unloading the truck and driving to Air Bellows in mid-afternoon, I was greeted by an air temperature of 13°F. Nippy but, fortunately, no wind was blowing.
I had left the thermostat set at 65°F when I left. Heat pumps do work very well at those kinds of temperatures and the inside temperature had dropped to 50°F. So turned off the heat pump and cranked up the new cast iron stove (propane), the fireplace and the wood stove in the basement. By the time I went to bed, the house temperature had reached 60°F.
I had drained the water pipes before leaving on Tuesday but found the pipes at the wellhead frozen upon my return. Now, this had happened once before and I had solved the problem by running a separate electrical line to the well and wrapping the pipes with heating tape. That still leaves the problem of the pipes (plastic) in the twelve inches just below the surface of the ground in the freeze zone. Regular usage of water is sufficient to keep this segment of pipe unfrozen but two days at these temperatures was too much. So, out came the infrared heat lamp and the wait for the thaw.
Sure enough, I was down in the basement two hours later and heard water running. Trouble was, all the spigots were closed and the pump was turned off. Nothing was computing in my feeble brain until I saw a pond of water on the basement floor. The section of pipe leading to the outside spigot is the lowest section of pipe in the house and some residual water in the pipes had drained there and frozen. So, perversely, I shut off the water, cut off the pipe, glued on a new value I had on hand and began the wait for the adhesive to develop full strength. That takes two hours at 60°F. The wood stove had only recently been fired and the air temperature was only at 40°F at that juncture. Accordingly, I was without water again but for a different reason. So it was that I turned on the emergency heating strips and crawled into bed for the night.
It is -4°F and rising as I write. But, it's only +5 in International Falls, MN, the coldest place in the United States. How weird is that?
I had left the thermostat set at 65°F when I left. Heat pumps do work very well at those kinds of temperatures and the inside temperature had dropped to 50°F. So turned off the heat pump and cranked up the new cast iron stove (propane), the fireplace and the wood stove in the basement. By the time I went to bed, the house temperature had reached 60°F.
I had drained the water pipes before leaving on Tuesday but found the pipes at the wellhead frozen upon my return. Now, this had happened once before and I had solved the problem by running a separate electrical line to the well and wrapping the pipes with heating tape. That still leaves the problem of the pipes (plastic) in the twelve inches just below the surface of the ground in the freeze zone. Regular usage of water is sufficient to keep this segment of pipe unfrozen but two days at these temperatures was too much. So, out came the infrared heat lamp and the wait for the thaw.
Sure enough, I was down in the basement two hours later and heard water running. Trouble was, all the spigots were closed and the pump was turned off. Nothing was computing in my feeble brain until I saw a pond of water on the basement floor. The section of pipe leading to the outside spigot is the lowest section of pipe in the house and some residual water in the pipes had drained there and frozen. So, perversely, I shut off the water, cut off the pipe, glued on a new value I had on hand and began the wait for the adhesive to develop full strength. That takes two hours at 60°F. The wood stove had only recently been fired and the air temperature was only at 40°F at that juncture. Accordingly, I was without water again but for a different reason. So it was that I turned on the emergency heating strips and crawled into bed for the night.
It is -4°F and rising as I write. But, it's only +5 in International Falls, MN, the coldest place in the United States. How weird is that?
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