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In article .com,
says...

JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"peter" wrote in message
news:YYUch.3052$bW2.358@trndny04...
In the unfortunate event of losing electric power for days during freezing
weather, what is the best way to prevent water pipes from freezing?

Leave each faucet dripping, or turn off water main?

I'm trying to compile a disaster todo list.

BTW, normally pipes inside houses are kept warm by central heating. But
what keeps the pipes under the streets from freezing?

If you're there to keep an eye on things, leave the faucets on a slow drip.
If you're gone, turn them on full blast and then shut off the main valve to
the house. Last, flush all toilets.

How is turning on the faucets full blast and then shutting of the main
valve going to prevent his pipes from freezing and bursting? The
solution if the place is going to be left unattended and possibly
without power, is to drain the water system and put antifreeze in the
toilets

Depending on the layout of the house, his method could work fairly well.
If you turn off the water with all the faucets open, the upstairs
plumbing will drain through the downstairs faucets. If you then flush
all the toilets, they're usually the lowest fixture in each bathroom, so
they'll drain much of the remaining water in the system. Especially if
you flush each toilet again to make sure there's no water left in the
tank.

But I'd still worry in a hard freeze, this method doesn't clear the
water out of the toilet traps or other drain traps, it doesn't drain the
water heater, and it doesn't drain all the pipes in the walls. It
really is best to drain the whole system from a low-point drain valve if
you have one.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html