Joe wrote:
On Nov 29, 4:05 pm, "james" wrote:
In the winter I want to turn on my faucets a trickle to prevent pipes from
freezing. However, faucets are not designed to meter small amounts of water
flow, so it is tricky to let out small amounts of water from both hot and
cold sides. It's even trickier for single handle faucets -- they are not
balanced with small amount of water flow, so centering the handle does not
let out equal amounts of hot/cold water. And the hardest is to make everyone
do this after using the faucets.

Are there special faucets to help ease this task? Ideally this special
faucet would be separate from the regular faucet, have adjustable flow rate
independent from the on/off valve, and can be installed under the sink and
drain into the P trap without a dripping sound.

I did not find such device on the web, perhaps because I don't know what it
is called.

Time to quit fooling around and freeze proof your domicile. It isn't
expensive nor difficult,

What's your estimate of the expense of such a project including the
permits, electrician work to get power to the heat tapes, patching
the drywall you had to remove to gain access to pipes, removing/replacing
insulation, asbestos abatement, etc.?
Feel free to itemize.

I had interesting conversations with two weatherization consultants
and a weatherization contractor. They all believed that insulating
pipes keeps them from freezing. All pipe insulation does is
slow down the freezing process. Insulation elsewhere that results
in raising the temperature around the pipes above the freezing point
is required. Heat tape can do that, IF it's working. If it quits
working due to age, loss of power etc. you can be fat dumb and happy
while your pipes are breaking.

so head to your local Ace hardware, box
store, and survey the heat tapes, insulation, other commonly used
materials. If the place is really hopeless, maybe you don't want to
waste the money. Find a better house, trailer or shed.

Joe