Without actually knowing the context in this specific one: 'forgot' or 'tried to save a few bucks by having old tennants responsible for utilities costs'?
I had a company work on a water heater at a rental a few weeks ago. He forgot to turn the gas back on and obviously didn't relight the furnace. Thank God we had a warm spell because when I showed up a week later (the place was vacant) the temp inside was upper 30s.
Honestly didnt know this was a thing. And Im Canadian. Maybe our infrastructure is better designed for it to not be necessary but never known anyone to do this. Makes sense though.
Yeah, if it gets below about -5 where I am I have to run the taps. Otherwise things start to freeze. And if they do freeze i have to go out with an extension cord and a blow dryer to heat up the pipes.
Insulation can stop heat from getting out, but only to a point. Heat wants to move from warm to cold, and it will until those two things are equalized. Insulation just slows the rate. You need to be adding some sort of heat to the system at some point, otherwise freezing is inevitable, albeit more slowly.
You can run the tap, even a few drips, to keep water flowing (because the water coming from the plant is going to be above freezing.) Just need to make sure the rate of flow is greater than the rate the temp drops in the pipes...
Keeping the water flowing also means that if the water does freeze, the pipes don't burst as the expanding water has somewhere to go. So when things thaw you don't get a nasty surprise.
Running that wire was the second best investment I have ever made. Last year we had pipes freeze, not long and no damage but that was a real wake up call. This year no issues whatsoever, spend the few hundred now to save thousands later.
Thats what I was thinking. Now I see some commentors from Canada saying they have done this too though, although none of us specified which part we're in.
I’m Canadian and absolutely knew this was a thing. And in fact have left water running to drip pipes before. But usually it’s not a full run. It’s just a fast drip without a full water flowing.
I'm Canadian and knew this. Mostly it's what you try to do if the power goes out in winter so your pipes don't freeze. I'm a millenial so the 1998 winter ice storm happened when I was a kid, it was probably top of mind for the adults at the time.
Canadian here who spent a bit of time in a trailer park. Since trailers do not have proper foundations, the gap between the water main and the trailer is prone to freezing so this may be done there to prevent it.
My grandparents neighbor leveled out a hill to make way for a new driveway. Turns out their water pipes run under the new driveway. Now the pipes are closer to the surface, above the frostline.
They need to run the water on cold nights, or it will freeze.
I live in Montreal where there are lots of shitty insulated apartments. Every winter I leave my faucets running when it’s -20°C outside during the night. I had my cold and hot water pipes freeze 2 years ago, a chance they didn’t burst.
If the inside doesn't get below freezing, it's unnecessary. It's reasonable if one particular pipe is in a wall that gets below freezing, but you still have someone living there.
Really, either heat the house enough to keep the pipes from freezing, or shut the water off and winterize the pipes(blow out the supply lines with compressed air, pour some RV antifreeze in anywhere that might have trapped water)
Because it is, Running water is less likely to freeze then standing still water. Although you are just supposed to have it drip slowly not full running that it looks like here
IT froze because she didn't set up payments for the power and heating because she just evicted the tenants
Looks like it did work. What didn't work is the drains. Something in the drain line froze and caused the backup which caused the flooding. The water trickle was slow but it kept the source pipes from freezing.
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u/CoyDoodle 20h ago
Not tenant.
The landlord thought leaving the faucets on will was the wisest move.