The blog of Michael Rice

Well its been down right freezing cold the last couple weeks with a peak (why a low point is a peak I dont know..) where the temp got down to the low teens. My mom tells me it broke a record that was set back in the day… Every year when this cold blows into town and we get our first major freeze like that our pipes like to freeze up and bust. Its happened every year for the last 8 years or so. This year was no exception to the rule. Getting these old copper pipes fixed is a real pain in the @$$. Its never just a quick fix like the problem appears to be.
I happen to be going out to the back yard when I see all the water flooding out of our laundry room, which is outside the house and is a small room with 1 door and no ceiling (not to be confused with roof which it does have) or insulation. I went and shut the main water valve off and went to check the weather. It was going to be getting into the low 20’s again so I figured no need in trying to bother fixing the pipes. So the next day the weather warms up some into the 40’s and is only going to get into the 30’s so I decide to try to fix the problem. Once I get all the insulation we had wrapped around the pipes I find its split pretty bad and Im going to have to go buy some stuff to fix it.
At the store I get all the stuff I will need to fix the pipe. When I get home and try to fix it I have no luck getting one of the repair places to hold. I try several times and end up getting pissed off and deciding we didnt need water for another day. I get up and the next day first thing get the pipe fixed, no sooner did I finish the repair did another pipe bust, who didnt see that comin…. So back to the store again, this time I call a buddy to help with the project, he comes over and this next pipe goes a bit better, just when we though victory was ours Ill be damned if the faucet heads didnt start leaking when I hooked the washer hoses up and so I had to go back to the store one more time to buy new faucets to hook the hoses up to.. What an ordeal, in total it cost nearly 40 to fix everything. At least it is all fixed now, and I hope its done freezing for the year but I doubt it…
I told my grandpa about this and described our laundry room to him and he gave me a suggestion of using chicken wire and going and getting some insulation. Insulating the walls and dropping in a make-shift ceiling using the chicken wire, I priced this out and I will be able to get all the material I need for like $20-35 and so I plan to do that soon and maybe then the pipes wont freeze on us anymore.. Grandparents sure can be full of awesome information so go call yours today!!