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Toller Toller is offline
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Default Okay, all the information...


"RicodJour" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 6, 4:48 pm, "Toller" wrote:
The cottage is in upstate NY.


Yeah? Where?


Canandaigua

The pipes are 1/2" copper. The cottage is built on piers, so the
plumbing
is all exposed to the elements; but being in deep woods, there is rarely
much wind.

This time of year the highs are about 55 and the lows are 40, so the
cottage
interior is usually about 47.

But last night there was a frost advisory, so there was a chance the
temperature would hit 32. Given the precision of the weather forecast,
that
means there is a chance it would hit 30 for a few hours.


Precision implies repeatability. If you're relying on the weather
forecast remember that they only have to get it wrong one time to hurt
you.

So my question is basically, if they forecast is for a low of 30, are my
exposed pipes likely to freeze?
If not, what overnight low temperature do I have to be concerned about?


Looking at risk/reward, if temps dipped down to 28 degrees or so for a
couple or three hours, it's unlikely that you'd experience hard
freezing and burst pipes. The problem is you'll never know with any
certainty how low the temperature will actually drop. If you guess
wrong by a few degrees and you were hanging it out there by not
winterizing...well, those are the sort of learning experiences one
doesn't forget.


I cut a few corners two years ago and had two pipes break. Won't happen
again...

I broke down and drained the pipes today, so it is not actually an issue
for
this year; but I will go through the same thing next year. A couple
years
ago I actually started to insulate the pipes and add heat tape, but then
it
occured to me that if I had a leak, finding it and fixing it would be 10
times as hard; so I abandoned the project.


I've used lights of various sorts to add just enough heat to protect a
pipe or whatever from freezing. Have you thought about replacing the
copper pipe with PEX? Simple enough to do and you can easily run the
plumbing through the house in a more protected location. Here's an
interesting tidbit on PEX and freeze/thaw tolerance:
http://www.solar2006.org/presentatio...s/t37-a234.pdf

I was actually thinking of that; thanks.