Brrr!!! /|\ Icicle Stalagmite On Swan Lake, Tucson, Arizona /|\ Trying to Keep Pipes and Hoses From Freezing And Bursting
Brrr!!! It is the coldest since the forties. One degree F above the record low of 22deg F on this date. I have the hose spigot slightly open so the hose was dripping through much of the night. The dripping water formed an icicle stalagmite. It formed before the water froze in the hose and stopped dripping. The real goal is to keep the faucet from bursting. It is slightly open so it is less likely to crack. We are in the Sonoran Desert.
The air is dry and clear, so we get lots of radiative cooling as the ground radiates directly to the 3 deg Kelvin temperature of space! That's three degrees above absolute zero!!!
And since it never gets cold in Tucson, LOL, the building codes for insulating pipes and using drainable spigots are grossly inadequate... Two years ago I decided to order drainable faucets from the Northeast. However, I realized that I have no crawlspace to get at the pipes to put shutoffs inside a warm area, so the idea of draining pipes to the hose spigots was not feasible without major work. If I were 40 years younger, I would slowly excavate a basement under the house. But my knees would not survive a single day of digging.
IMG_4892 - Version 2
Brrr!!! /|\ Icicle Stalagmite On Swan Lake, Tucson, Arizona /|\ Trying to Keep Pipes and Hoses From Freezing And Bursting
Brrr!!! It is the coldest since the forties. One degree F above the record low of 22deg F on this date. I have the hose spigot slightly open so the hose was dripping through much of the night. The dripping water formed an icicle stalagmite. It formed before the water froze in the hose and stopped dripping. The real goal is to keep the faucet from bursting. It is slightly open so it is less likely to crack. We are in the Sonoran Desert.
The air is dry and clear, so we get lots of radiative cooling as the ground radiates directly to the 3 deg Kelvin temperature of space! That's three degrees above absolute zero!!!
And since it never gets cold in Tucson, LOL, the building codes for insulating pipes and using drainable spigots are grossly inadequate... Two years ago I decided to order drainable faucets from the Northeast. However, I realized that I have no crawlspace to get at the pipes to put shutoffs inside a warm area, so the idea of draining pipes to the hose spigots was not feasible without major work. If I were 40 years younger, I would slowly excavate a basement under the house. But my knees would not survive a single day of digging.
IMG_4892 - Version 2