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The Daring Dufas[_7_] The Daring Dufas[_7_] is offline
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Default Wrapping outdoor faucets (hose bibs)

On 2/1/2011 2:45 PM, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Feb 1, 3:37 pm, "Bob-tx"No Spam no contact wrote:
Getting mighty cold in central Texas. Last couple days was 80+ degrees.
Got down to 40 at midnight last night and by 9:00 this morning, it was 32.
Going to be 17 degrees tonight, and 15 tomorrow night. In fact, we may not
get above freezing until Saturday sometime. It was a short summer.

Anyway, I went out and dutifully wrapped all our outdoor faucets; first with
a bath towel, then with two inch thick foam rubber, and taped it all tight
around the faucets.

But, I wonder why this keeps them from freezing. Obviously, there is no
heat generated by wrapping them, and there is very little residual warmth in
the faucet / pipe stub. A little residual warmth from the brick siding, but
that is all. It seems to me that the bitter cold would soak through the
towel and foam rubber in a few hours. Then, what good does it do to wrap
them?

I know it seems to help by wrapping the faucets, but I'm not sure why. Any
ideas?

Bob-tx


Heat is transfering from the inside out. Warm always moves towards
cold.


Is that why I should keep the refrigerator shut when I fart? :-)

TDD