Yeah, But It's A Dry Cold
This latest cold snap has forced me to become more aware of my piping than ever before.
They say a man never truly gets to know his house until he's had to buy two hundred feet of 3/4" foam pipe insulation. Well, whoever "they" are, they're overdue for their meds. But they're right, especially when you have an old house whose plumbing and electrical systems were thoughtfully installed several dozen years after the place was constructed.
When it's so cold they've had to call off the 108th Annual Write-Your-Name-In-The-Snow Competition, you wake up in the morning wanting to know two things: 1) Did my pipes freeze overnight? and 2) Why the hell didn't I spring for heated toilet seats?
I'll leave the second question unanswered for the time being and concentrate on what I've been doing to not have to ask the first. Mostly, it's involved a lot of hoping that it won't get too much colder. I mean, there's only so much I can do with a 127-year-old plank-built house.
One thing I have in my favor is that I don't have a lot of pipes running through interior walls. The piping for the entire first floor runs through the basement and comes up through ingeniously placed holes in the floor. The risers to the 2nd floor are in one of two pipe chases, or in two or three cases, ingeniously placed holes in both the first and second floors. So I figure as long as I keep the temperature within the house reasonable, and the basement above about 31.9 degrees, I should be able to not worry about it so much and concentrate instead on installing heated toilet seats.
The pipe insulation angle is supposedly very important in a house like mine, which is heated with hot water baseboard. I'm not 100% positive about this, though. I have this possibly incredibly underinformed idea that the exposed copper hot water pipes in my basement actually serve to heat the surrounding air just enough to keep the cold water pipes from freezing, and that insulating them may bring the basement temperature low enough to cause one supremely ruined day. Informal poll: do any of you insulate or heat exposed piping in your basement? The hot or cold pipes or both? Foam noodles? Sticky insulation tape? Standing there blowing on it?
The surrounding air temperature issue worried me as well. Last Wednesday when we hit 3 below, I spent the day wearing a hat and scarf, sitting next to an electric space heater like a charter member of the Ladies Auxilliary. This led to the great Draft Hunt of 2007, where I became friends with my new favorite substance: rope caulk weatherstripping. Just say it three times fast and you'll think as much of it as I do. I ran around the house feeling around for places where the cold air was coming in, and lemmetellya, that stuff sealed up around window and door frames and cold molding joints like magic. Beats the regular foam weatherstrip silly. And, need I point out again: fun to say. Rope caulk weatherstripping!
I got some window frame shrink-wrap for the window in the cold downstairs bathroom, and covered up some small leftover dings in the kitchen wall and ceiling that were sucking up my hard-earned warm air. So between that and plastic sheeting, foil tape, regular weatherstripping, and my trusty caulk gun, this last week I've been able to get to the point where I'm no longer wanting to stand around a trash fire in a 55-gallon drum in my living room. As much fun as that sounds, I'm not quite sure that'll come off as such a great decision come this May.
Which sure seems like a long way from now, doesn't it?
posted by Ross @ 11:43 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
sweetheart- you haven't been around here that long---try two full weeks at an average of minus 15----January 1967----this has been an extremely mild winter- so far both in terms of cold AND snow-- although I hear we'll be getting some snow this weekend---but you are doing the right thing in getting prepared when global cooling returns-- lol --- chbpod
And wait until next week.
I've found that putting a conservative near your pipes and asking him to explain how the Bush administration's policies have been good for the country keeps the water flowing freely and the air good and hot.
Not in the least bit defending W. and his policies, I've found all parties blow equally hot air. However, in his post, Ross raises legitimate and non-political questions about pipes in old houses (and with humor, too). Someone out there should be able to help. It's winter, finally, and may be minus 4 next week. So, another question: Once you've swallowed hard and installed a new furnace (replacing the coal-converted-to-oil giant from 1898 or therabouts -- covered with asbestos, naturally -- how do you stop the pipes from banging? Or is that a good workout for them? (And something for Ross to consider.) This question, of course, is keeping me awake nights.
Is your basement really close to freezing? If so, you might want to work on the basement windows. You probably do need to leave enough air coming in for the furnace to breathe. (I doubt your old furnace has an external air source, but it's possible.) But it's unlikely you could seal your house, as you describe it, so tight that that becomes a problem. If you don't already have carbon monoxide detectors, get them now that you're tightening up the house with weatherstripping.
I've never heard of pipes freezing in a basement, only in external walls.
Dave--I never said I had an old furnace. Just the opposite, in fact. In my basement there now stands a brand new, super-efficient Buderus G124 gas-fired boiler and a Bosch 250SX on-demand tankless water heater, complete with a code-required hard-wired CO detector and a federal energy efficiency tax credit.
Last winter I was less worried because the old oil burner threw off enough heat. But that one died last July, and 3 weeks of cold showers later in August we were able to re-dig a connection to the gas main, find deals on the boiler and heater, corral a plumber to install it, and then have a nasty battle when the final bill was three times the original estimate.
Plus, there is just plain no way I could get this house "tight" in any sense of the word. Put it in a lake and it sinks right to the bottom. Well, perhaps most houses do, but you get the idea.
Thanks for the suggestions, though. I appreciate hearing from other old-house-owners....
Ross-
Ours is a 1900 Vic with a fairly decent furnace. We put new storm/screen window inserts on the many, many windows (the old glass was just too cool to replace with all new stuff) and had an efficiency person come in to rate our house. She said we were operating at about 90% efficiency, which is great, but damn if it ain't still cold in there.
Never had a problem with freezing pipes (knock on my solid wood frame home).
Well....let me tell you about the really really really cold winter we had a few winters ago. I don't think our furnace stopped running (at all) for nearly an entire month. The pipes clanked so loud they scared me and our gas bill was even scarier. Then we realized our house had absolutely NO insulation in the walls. None. Nada.
Anyway, there's a great energy program in Pittsfield that will help pay 1/2 of the cost of insulating your house through your gas or oil company. Cost us a $1000 out of pocket and saved us that in a year's time. Best thing we did for this old house!
anon's post is a cautionary tale that potential home buyers should check to see if and what kind of insulation a house has before buying it--especially true if one is new to the area and comes from warmer climes- where one didn't really worry about such things--chbpod
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