Do it Yourself: Re: [DIY] faucet running water logic?

08 January 2014

Re: [DIY] faucet running water logic?

when I was stationed in Misawa Japan many years ago when I was in the Navy, we lived off-base and pipes freezing during the winter was a common occurrence. What I learned was that *every* faucet should be allowed to drip. All of the pipes need to have movement or they'll freeze. It doesn't have to have a steady stream, just a constant drip. What I did was tie a shoelace to the faucet that ran down to the drain and then I just barely left the faucet open to allow a drip every couple of seconds. The shoelace (or string) allowed the water to flow down the string so that we wouldn't hear a constant drip which could be really annoying at night.

Doing that kept all of the pipes from freezing up and after we did that, we never had a problem with freezing pipes. Misawa's temps routinely went below zero in the winter and you learned fast how to survive in the cold...especially when winter ran 9 months out of the year.

-aki

On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:56 AM, John and Carmen Stuart <johnandcarmen@bellsouth.net> wrote:

I also have a logic question that I'm not sure about.
In a trailer with 2 bathrooms at either end, and the hot water heater positioned by the master bedroom, (kitchen in the trailer middle) if only one faucet was to be left with a small stream to keep

the pipes from freezing, which of the three faucets make the most sense to appropriately open for the deep-freeze?
carmen

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On Jan 8, 2014, at 1:00 AM, <cleanboost2@yahoo.com> wrote:

We live in a trailer. OK, it's worse than freezing, but we're warm. I never had to think about these things, but I wonder about the water pipes freezing. I left the water tap very slightly dripping by the kitchen sink, the cold water. I have a couple of questions: is it the cold water that should be open? I mean slightly running? We've had zero degrees thereabouts.