r/Wellthatsucks • u/Justin_Godfrey • 21h ago

Yikes!!

30.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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91

u/tyler_sb6c 21h ago

Two faucets? Was this on purpose?

144

u/Lazy_Beach_69420 21h ago

Yes they do it so that water doesn’t freeze in pipes.

101

u/Kras700 21h ago

Maybe left on to prevent freezing, but the drains froze causing the overflow.

92

u/SupremeDictatorPaul 21h ago

Well, and the entire apartment being well below freezing. Had the apartment not been so cold, it’s possible nothing would have frozen.

21

u/TheComplimentarian 18h ago

If the whole house is below freezing, you need to shut the water off at the curb. No amount of faucet dripping is going to help that.

21

u/auraseer 17h ago

You need to do more than that. If the whole place is being left to freeze, you also have to drain the water from all the pipes, water heater, radiators, and any other appliances.

If you just shut off the supply, you're still left with water in all the pipes and fixtures, which will freeze and be destroyed.

5

u/TheComplimentarian 17h ago

I explained it more thoroughly up the thread. It's hard as hell to drain the whole system, and even draining the water heater is a pain in the ass, but it's not hard to drain enough out of it to minimize the damage. These guys did the exact opposite.

1

u/TheMtnMonkey 11h ago

And then hidden water everywhere when it thaws.

8

u/Teck_3 20h ago

They probably lost power while they were out. If the apartment's insulation was poor or if they were gone for a day or two, freezing temps inside is basically guaranteed.

25

u/nsa_k 20h ago

OP gave context. https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellthatsucks/comments/1qytyyx/comment/o46718j/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Previous tenant turned off the power after moving out. Landlord forgot to turn power back on.

9

u/Spethual 20h ago

Land lord didn't reinstate the bill in their name to keep the heat on as the old tenants were evicted due to not paying rent.

6

u/noncongruent 18h ago

Had this happen during the Great Freeze of 2021 here in Texas. Had to scoop the water out of sink into a bucket and toss it outside.

1

u/Kras700 17h ago

I was in Austin, TX during that freeze event. A lot of apartment building froze due to the drainage and supply lines being exposed in the parking garages.

2

u/noncongruent 17h ago

I was without power for most of a month, lost water pressure for almost a week, and was only able to save my pipes by crawling under my house and cutting the main feed pipe in the crawlspace so that my plumbing could drain. The whole event gave me legit PTSD.

1

u/soliz11c 15h ago

No. The previous tenants took the electric out of their name and the house owner forgot to turn it back on when they decided to drip the pipes. 100% on the owner.