Hunker down

WAMO

Spanking His Monkey
WHILE YOU GOT THE WALL OPEN, YOU COULD SPRAY FOAM IT NOW 9. THEY MAKE FITTINGS NOW THAT AUTO DRIP WHEN THE TEMP DROPS BELOW 37. THEY RANGE IN PRICE ABOUT $20ea TO ABOUT $40ea. GARAGE FLOOR GOT WET? HOCKEY GAME BABEE!!!

ITS TEXAS SEVEN. WE DONT USUALLY GET COLD TEMPS LIKE THIS FOR THIS LONG. MOST ALL USE THAT PEXS PIPING NOW, SO DONT HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS. AND ITS MORE DURABLE.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
Damn why would a builder put water pipes in the attic??
Shit, that's what they do down in FL. Old slab houses that leak under the slab they just run in the attic. I'm in N. Alabama and they do the same thing. They will run them as close to the heated space under the insulation as they can. We have PEX under the slab, up the wall to CPVC stub out.

About 5 houses had CPVC blowouts in 2018 when we hit 3 degrees. They didn't run the water on those pipes. In other cases the builder put the insulation on the wrong side, so heat would never get to the pipes.

PEX was supposed to solve these issues but then about 7 or 8 years ago NIBCO had a bad batch of PEX that would cause pinhole leaks under the slab. A whole neighborhood behind me has a class action against NIBCO. Another neighbor here had a NIBCO leak related to the batch of PEX. We have no idea our PEX manufacturer since our house was built after.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
One of the things I learned is that plumbers here in N. Alabama don't want to run the plumbing as if we get sub 20s temperature that blow pipes. Then they leave the homeowner trying to figure out what to do. When we go on vacation for Xmas I shut the water off to the house.

If we lost power Monday I already had a plan to shut off the water. I had 10 gallons of water ready to go for the toilets and bottled water for drinking and cooking.
 

9andaWiggle

Addicted Member
Damn why would a builder put water pipes in the attic??
For some retarded reason, they like to put water heaters in the attic around here. We're lucky, ours is in the garage. BUT, there are pipes sticking up in the attic above our master bath shower that are capped off - I assume this was done with the intention/option to put a second water heater up there.

On edit after seeing other replies: I forgot about PEX. A friend of mine has that and it's exposed in his attic at least to the tankless hot water heater that's up there.

I've been thinking about how to insulate that pipe. I'll definitely look into the foam!
 

9andaWiggle

Addicted Member
Doesn't anyone have a basement down there?
No. At least not around the Houston area. Ground is shit here. Even with slabs, if your home is 20 years old and DOESN'T have foundation issues, you are lucky. Our neighborhood (and many others in the area) was a flooded rice field 30 years ago...
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
No. At least not around the Houston area. Ground is shit here. Even with slabs, if your home is 20 years old and DOESN'T have foundation issues, you are lucky. Our neighborhood (and many others in the area) was a flooded rice field 30 years ago...
That seems so strange to me. Up here, if you don't have a basement you have weird house. LOL.
 

9andaWiggle

Addicted Member
Yeah, a lot of people had basements where I grew up in KS. A guy I used to work for bought a house that had an actual bomb shelter built under it. Guess that was a thing back in the late 40's - 50's when it was built?
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
Yeah, a lot of people had basements where I grew up in KS. A guy I used to work for bought a house that had an actual bomb shelter built under it. Guess that was a thing back in the late 40's - 50's when it was built?
That was huge during the cold war of the 50s and 60s. I remember in elementary school we had drills where we would quickly put our books in our desks and crawl under them and cover our heads. Like that was going to help...
 

WAMO

Spanking His Monkey
I HAVE A FEW CUSTOMERS IN DALLAS THAT DONT HAVE BASEMENTS, THEY HAVE "WINE CELLARS". I USED TO WORK ON HOMES IN THE DALLAS HISTORICAL DISTRICT. MOST ALL THOSE HAD BASEMENTS. BUILT IN THE MID 1800'S TO THE EARLY 1900'S.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
For some retarded reason, they like to put water heaters in the attic around here. We're lucky, ours is in the garage. BUT, there are pipes sticking up in the attic above our master bath shower that are capped off - I assume this was done with the intention/option to put a second water heater up there.

On edit after seeing other replies: I forgot about PEX. A friend of mine has that and it's exposed in his attic at least to the tankless hot water heater that's up there.

I've been thinking about how to insulate that pipe. I'll definitely look into the foam!
Many 70s to 80s homes here have hot water heaters in attics as well. Many are two story.

The black foam that comes from HD or lowes is like R-2. That's usually good enough if the water is at least running/dripping. If it's not pipes could freeze. Had a friend with PEX in the attic that had frozen here after on vacation that had the black foam. House flooded. Builder told him the foam was only good to about 25 degrees if the water wasn't running. Brand new home. It also didn't help that he had R-50 in the rafters and this pipe was above nthe rafter insulation. There was no heat rising from the house to keep the pipe warm.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
I live in Dixie alley with tornadoes and few houses have basements. Some do if they are on a hillside.

The reason? We have rock hard clay that is extremely unstable. Slab homes can be built on clay as the clay underneath doesn't have expansion and contraction issues that the clay would go through if along a concrete wall. It's the same reason it's hard to build concrete retaining walls are hard to build here.
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
Seems to me the best thing you guys could do is install heat tape on all the pipes and power it via a switched outlet, or one on a thermal switch. Can manually or automatically turn the heat tape on below 32°. My old house, many years ago, had thermostatically controlled heat tape. Worked extremely well.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
Seems to me the best thing you guys could do is install heat tape on all the pipes and power it via a switched outlet, or one on a thermal switch. Can manually or automatically turn the heat tape on below 32°. My old house, many years ago, had thermostatically controlled heat tape. Worked extremely well.
These work great when you have power. A buddy of mine used this for his house on a crawl space. Some of the unions were exposed so he used heat tape.

If he loses power and it's freezing he shuts the main off.
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
These work great when you have power. A buddy of mine used this for his house on a crawl space. Some of the unions were exposed so he used heat tape.

If he loses power and it's freezing he shuts the main off.
Yeah, in the case of total failure one would need a small generator to keep the tape powered.
 

Djarum300

Addicted Member
Yeah, in the case of total failure one would need a small generator to keep the tape powered.
Last I talked to him, he was looking into a 12V system that uses a deep cycle marine battery that could keep the the tape heated. I think he had like 20 locations with it under his house. He said the plan would be every winter would be to charge up the battery and hook kit up and forget it until the spring. I don't know if he got it working.
 

WAMO

Spanking His Monkey
WATER HEATERS IN ATTICS DONT MEET CODE IN TEXAS ANYMORE. MAY BE NATIONWIDE, NOT SURE OF THAT. MOST ALL ARE LOCATED IN GARAGES, FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.
 

Greg T.

The Jizz Slinger
Last I talked to him, he was looking into a 12V system that uses a deep cycle marine battery that could keep the the tape heated. I think he had like 20 locations with it under his house. He said the plan would be every winter would be to charge up the battery and hook kit up and forget it until the spring. I don't know if he got it working.
That would be a good idea. To add to that, he could keep the system fresh by using the battery once a month and recharging it. Would probably last for years. Could also power some yard lights or something with the battery and keep a battery tender on it 24/7.
 

9andaWiggle

Addicted Member
They ran 5/8" copper about 24" off the floor horizontally across 18' of outer wall. Wrapped with thin, flimsy slip-on foam. Had to stand in line for 45 mins at hardware store - they were restocking with supplies from another store across town that didn't have power. I was able to get a compression fitting and cap for temporary fix.

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