Baby it's cold outside

turbo

Good luck. Places that sell heat tape often sell neoprene insulation. It looks like a pipe made of foam, with a split down one side. After you wrap the pipe with heat tape, pop the insulation over the wrapped pipe and seal the split with duct tape. It increases the effectiveness of the heat tape and saves you more money. Around here, there are lots of people who heat primarily or entirely with wood, and their cellars are cold and uninsulated, so we are pretty dependent on heat tape and neoprene pipe insulation to keep the water flowing.

I had to install extra rigid foam insulation on one wall of my cellar. We leave the floor of the house uninsulated so some heat gets down there, but we needed some extra help keeping the cellar warm enough so that our garlic and squash don't freeze.

radou

It's -7 C right now in here in Croatia, which is pretty cold, but still okay, since we've had a one-week period of an average -15 C a few weeks ago. You get used to it.

rewebster

Cold weather and potholes--

boy, hitting a pothole at ~65mph compared to ~30mph gives a whole new meaning of 'shocks' to the car. Another alignment for the car in April or May

Gokul43201

Wow! I thought I was gone a while, but this is a blast from the past. You been hibernating, radou?

dlgoff

When I did a little modification of my incoming water line, I noticed that the copper line was really starting to get deteriorated for being too warm. The heat tape was wrapped without any space between the wraps. I replaced the copper and heat tape but this time with a shorter one that just runs parallel to the pipe that was suggested by the installation instructions. I should have know this since when I was working at a chemical plant, we would make heat tape runs of hundreds of feet parallel to the lines.

In short, too much heat can be bad.

rewebster

that's why hot water lines always freeze (and break) first just about always in colder weather before the cold water lines---the heat from warm water changes the copper


"In short, too much heat can be bad."--but I do like summer a lot more than winter!

Borek

Plastic piping and we are talking only about one cold line which can freeze, but thanks for the remarks.

S_Happens

I just got back from a Ski trip in Colorado where it stayed below 20 F at the base of the mountains the whole trip (so mostly single digit skiing). I was watching the sun rise monday and the thermometer stayed at 0 F until an hour and a half after the sun peeked over the mountains.

Being from Houston, I'm not used to anything like that.

rewebster

is that your main feed line from the street?


In the way of plastic, here in my area (Illinois), the plumbing store used to sell a plastic pipe product line called Qest, and it advertised as being 'freeze proof'---I don't know if they even make it any more---but the pipe itself could stands multiple rounds of freezing and thawing--the connections though, I had trouble with. It was gray and flexible---and if I remember it was a polypropylene.

Astronuc

It's nice and sunny here, although the temps are in the 20's F. We had snow showers yesterday, and last night the low temp was about 10 F.

We seem to be doing better than these folks:
Heavy snow, ice bury southern Plains, cut power
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/...s_winter_storm

turbo

Weird weather! Yesterday was in the 40's with light snow - today we have just managed to get up to 10 deg F with 20-30 mph winds with higher gusts. Brrrr. In normal winters we don't have fronts moving through in rapid succession, and once an arctic high settles over us, the winds subside and the weather is crisp, clear, and calm for days at a time.

There has been some discussion of global warming locally, and a nay-sayer said that last winter wasn't warm and instead of citing temperature trends (the logical thing to do) he offered as "proof" the fact that Presque Isle got 200" of snow last winter. Here, winter temperatures are negatively correlated with snowfall - a fact that seems to elude the "experts" when they want to delude the public, for whatever reason. The warmer our winters, the more snow we get.

That has been common knowledge among farmers, wood-cutters, etc forever. In fact, when I was a kid, there was a common belief that if we had a "green" Christmas (no snow on the ground) the elderly would die in greater numbers over the winter. No snow=colder than normal and houses around here 50 years ago were very poorly insulated and drafty, usually with single-pane windows. "Green Christmas, full graveyard."

physics girl phd

Our boys are home from school today. The county canceled it early (last night as about 6ish). We've yet to see ANY snow (it's nearly noon). Blockhead Southerners. I can't believe I've had a baby with a Tennessee birth certificate. At least they know their grits and sweet-tea.

Thus far:
Soundly defeated M in Monopoly.
Did some work-related emailing... and now goofing off on PF.
Soon to come:
We have lunch.
P gets a trolley-ride (and hence little E gets her outdoor time).

Evo

It's 16F outside and snowing.

Borek

Just above zero C, so we are thawning a little bit, somewhere between 5-10 cm of new snow in the last two dys. But we are to expect new wave of low temperatures.

rewebster

so, when school's out, there's an EMP

Astronuc

Correction:

18° F
Feels Like: 4° F
Wind: From NW at 17mph gusting to 27mph

I just walked down to the river and the wind was blowing rather strongly at about 20 mph. It felt less than 4° F.

turbo

Harsh weather for the birds. They can tolerate low temps when there is little wind, simply by fluffing up and lofting their feathers and keeping their feet tucked close to their bellies. Food was running a bit low, so I took our more seeds and suet for the chickadees. The 'dees are hitting the suet feeder pretty well, but they are being blocked out of the seed-feeder by the goldfinches. As soon as the goldfinches notice other birds at the seed-feeder they know that it has been re-filled and they swarm it and hog all the perches.

I guess we have already hit our high for the day (10 deg F) because it is cooling back down, and the winds are very strong. When the high has moved in, perhaps we'll be back to a more normal winter weather pattern (below zero every night, highs below freezing every day). I hope so. I don't want any more blizzards like the last two winters.