Cold emergency - the issue of your pipes

Local commercial media has been recommending this site as a resource for information on how to deal with the prospect of pipes freezing tonight and tomorrow morning. 

Unfortunately, that resource is geared toward northern folks who routinely face that kind of hazard, not those of us in Houston who face this predicament only rarely and whose houses are built "inside out" relative to houses in many parts of America (in other words, our houses are designed to retain coolness, not heat, and they are configured accordingly).

January 9, 2010:  Oh my word, it was cold here!!  That's our original Centerpointe analog water meter surrounded by puddles that froze solid during the construction phase of our house.  There were a few days that winter when we amused ourselves by driving around Section 9 watching all the busted pipes shoot water into the air at the other houses that were also still under construction at that time. 

My point being, it does happen here.  Pipes froze in 2010 and they might do so again tonight. 

Let me give you a crash course on the issue of crashed pipes.  Your understanding of this issue must start with awareness of how your home is configured.

Your home could vary tremendously from what I'm showing here, but the basic principles should be the same.  If your home is newer, somewhere inside it you will find a water supply manifold (older homes may have just a single line coming in and then branching off from there).  Ours was a Meritage built in 2009/2010, and so our water lines are made of PEX, but I believe most of the Brightons in Section 9 have PVC pipes (looks like white plastic). 

In this photo showing our house in "stick stage" before drywall was put up, you can see the back side of the manifold (child for scale).  Red means hot water lines, and blue means cold water lines.  But notice that both run from manifold into the attic above, where they are not insulated. 

On the other side of the wall, there's a cabinet that has a removable plastic panel that looks like this.  Yours is probably located in your garage if you have a one-story house.  If you have a 2-story, I'm not sure where you'd find it.  Maybe in your garage or in a closet. 

We have a freakin' garage storage cabinet in front of our PEX manifold so I can't show you a proper pic, but if I peek behind the cabinet, this is what I see:  a series of shut-off knobs on the lines that run hot and cold water to various faucets around the house. 

You've probably read accounts that tell you that, to avoid having your pipes freeze, either leave all your taps dripping, or shut down your individual feeds using the series of knobs that you'll find in your manifold cabinet, and then drain your water lines by opening the taps.  But there's a potential concern with that second approach.

Shutting and draining is only going to relieve the water pressure between your faucets and your manifold.  It will, indeed, drain much of the water from individual lines that run un-insulated through your attic and thus are vulnerable to freezing. But...

...there's still a potential issue with the main supply line that runs to your house from the street.  With the duration and intensity of the freeze we're expecting tonight, that line could potentially remain vulnerable.  It also runs through the attic, un-insulated, in many local houses. 

Screengrabbed from a NOAA forecast site. 

What I'm going to show in the pics that follow is NOT something that I necessarily recommend that you do.  I'm just going to say that there are people out there in greater Houston who, when faced with an un-insulated water service supply pipe and extended hard freeze conditions, will take this kind of action upon themselves.  This stuff below is for informational purposes only.

If you live in Centerpointe, your water meter is on your front lawn and it looks a lot like this.  There are little grooves in the outer edge of the cap.  It can be popped off using a screw driver. 

It looks like this on the inside.  I believe we all have digital meters by this time.  The cap of this one is open to show the read-out.  Anyone who pops off a water meter cover like this should be very careful not to damage the electronics (you can be fairly certain that you'd be made to pay for any damage you did).   

There's a special tool that's made for valving off the water supply at the meter.  These tools aren't always available at the local hardware store, however.  But you can see how the groove in the tool matches up with the corresponding notch in the valve which is visible at the very center of this photo. 

It's not an easy valve to turn - it's not something that can be done by hand or and it often can't be done easily with ordinary tools.  (And they usually only turn a quarter of a revolution, by the way.)

You should know that shutting your main valve isn't necessarily a slam dunk solution to a freeze threat.  Sometimes these water valves and line segments are old and degraded and if you were to mess with them, you could break the line itself and have an instant fountain, a very expensive fountain, in your front yard.  That happened to me at a previous residence.  Fortunately, it was the water company that broke the valve, not me, so I didn't have to pay to fix it.   

If the water is shut off at the street and the house lines drained, presumably this will, indeed, minimize the chances that an extended hard freeze will result in line damage. 

You could potentially get into trouble if you accidentally mess up your water meter, your main incoming valve, or the line.  You could also get into a heap of trouble if your water line freezes and splits.  Every once in a while, life invites us to pick our poison, eh?   

How cold is it right now??  Well, this was my bird bath this morning.  Bye bye subtropics, at least for a few days. 

Southwest Inn fire

The statistics were against me on this one: two months after getting traffic-gridlocked in the Space Cleaners fire in Clear Lake, I was traveling with a couple of business associates in Sharpstown just as the Southwest Inn fire was building. 

At this point shortly after noon today, the thing was just starting to escalate wildly and the Southwest Freeway was still moving close to posted speeds.  That mobility was short-lived. 

We went to a business lunch on Hillcroft assuming that the whole thing would be under control by the time we were finished.  But it got worse - a lot worse.  The Southwest Freeway was made impassable by the wall of intense smoke.  I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. 

Anyway, a tragic day in Houston's history with four firefighters reported as perishing and others injured in this horrible event.  I join with the rest of greater Houston in wishing condolences to the families affected by this tragedy.   

Space Cleaners fire

This will be all over the local news soon enough, but I thought I'd post a few pics just for the learning value.  I don't know how fire responses work, or why they do what they do (or why they do it when they do it).  But here are a few bystander observations on this one. 

4:19 p.m.
I walked out of the office supply store at NASA 1 and El Camino Real, only to note this in front of me.  Not something you see every day. 

4:20 p.m.
There appeared to be one small fire response vehicle on scene at this time (out of photo frame to the right).  The establishment was the Space Cleaners building.  No other structures appeared to be involved.  There's debate on the internet as to whether this address is located in Houston or Webster. 

4:22 p.m.
Forest Bend FD arrived on scene (times are approximate and per my cell phone).  I had never heard of these guys, but their website says they serve unincorporated south Harris County. 

4:28 p.m.
League City FD arrived on scene.  Your tax dollars at work.  Around this time, Seabrook also came in from the east side (out of photo frame).  Seabrook had a really cool boom truck with a room for a fireman at the top of its telescoping arm. 

4:33 p.m.
Into every emergency, a little randomness must fall:  a person pushing a shopping cart wandered through the traffic blockade and proceeded northward along El Camino Real, seemingly unimpressed by the goings-on. 

4:34 p.m.
Forest Bend FD got its boom stream up and running. 

Like I said, I have no idea how these things function.  I don't know why it took 12-ish minutes to get that overhead water stream going - perhaps they realized the building was a loss at that point, so no rush, perhaps the technology just takes that long to operate, or perhaps they were waiting for command orders.  Who knows?

Anyway, here's an embed.  The ads seem to spool according to a queue, but if you're lucky, you'll get the privilege of viewing a Mattress Mac ad ahead of this chopper footage.  Ma-ma-ma-mayo furniture!!
:-)


UPDATE 20130324: Bay Area Citizen seems to have published the most comprehensive coverage of this fire to date.