Speaker 1: Boy, you better lean on this guy if you want
Speaker 1: to know what's going on. It's our buddy Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 1: You can listen to him in nearly three hundred stations
Speaker 1: across America, and of course we're lucky to have him
Speaker 1: our sister station wuk RC starting at nine o'clock Saturdays
Speaker 1: and Sundays. Gary, I really enjoyed catching up with you
Speaker 1: last night. How was the grandchildren's holiday concert last night?
Speaker 2: Exhilarating? Exhilarating, exhilarating. It was fun.
Speaker 3: It's nothing like watching a bunch of fourth graders sing
Speaker 3: to you Christmas.
Speaker 2: No doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Now, I tell you what's not exhilarating if you get
Speaker 1: a frozen water pipe. Oh all right, So let's start
Speaker 1: with the very basic kind of thing, okay, and that
Speaker 1: is where do most people find or know if they
Speaker 1: have a frozen water pipe?
Speaker 3: Well, usually you find out one of the faucets that
Speaker 3: you use. I know when I had one one time.
Speaker 3: My daughter was probably in the eighth grade.
Speaker 2: Dad, there's no water in my pathtop?
Speaker 3: Uh, well, right behind that walls the attic, so the
Speaker 3: frozen pipe must be there.
Speaker 2: So a lot of times people find out, really because
Speaker 2: the water's just not working.
Speaker 3: But those water pipes are usually located along an outside wall,
Speaker 3: especially in older homes where there's no insulation in the walls,
Speaker 3: basement crawl spaces, those aren't heated. And up near the
Speaker 3: silt plates and the joist pockets where you get outside air.
Speaker 3: That's a place unheated. Garages, you know, the old garages, yeah, yep,
Speaker 3: and some of our older subdivisions where you pull down
Speaker 3: underneath the house and there's you know, the heat rises
Speaker 3: and got an old rackety garage door. That's a that's
Speaker 3: a prime spot for pipes to freeze. Underneath sinks on
Speaker 3: exterior walls. Those are the main places.
Speaker 1: So right now, even though you were telling me last
Speaker 1: night that it's probably not cold enough yet, but we
Speaker 1: know that that is on the way. In fact, we're
Speaker 1: going to be the coldest we've been in as far
Speaker 1: as a high today is concerned, as far as a
Speaker 1: low tonight is concerned.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So what I mean, is this the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that you can begin to address now?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Okay, I've been appreciating it on my show for
Speaker 3: a while. You know, where people get in trouble, it's
Speaker 3: not the people that have lived in the house for
Speaker 3: twenty five years. They've probably experienced it. They've probably rectified
Speaker 3: it over the years. But you know, somebody it's moving
Speaker 3: into a new home, but it's an older home, you know,
Speaker 3: and they've not been through a really cold winter's It's
Speaker 3: not really.
Speaker 2: Cold enough now unless the pipe is outside.
Speaker 3: You know, it's twenty nine degrees, but it gets down
Speaker 3: to five degrees or zero degrees, those addicts get really cold.
Speaker 3: The cross spaces get really cold, those outside walls get
Speaker 3: really cold, and then.
Speaker 2: You're going to have problems.
Speaker 3: So really trying to understand your house and where the
Speaker 3: pipes are and where they're vulnerable. There's easy ways to
Speaker 3: keep them from freezings. Some just opening up a cabinet and.
Speaker 2: Letting the heat of the room in there.
Speaker 3: Put foam wraps around the pipes that are against outside walls,
Speaker 3: if you know you don't have any insulation, those are
Speaker 3: great ways to prevent the problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, now there is a difference some of the material
Speaker 1: makeup of some of these pipes. Let's start with, do
Speaker 1: you thaw copper pipes pecs plumbing the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so pes is.
Speaker 3: Kind of you know in newer homes, but you know
Speaker 3: they can be vulnerable too, so they can freeze.
Speaker 2: Pecks. Pipes can freeze. If you're not familiar with what
Speaker 2: pecks is.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like a kind of a rubber hose
Speaker 3: instead of a copper pipe.
Speaker 2: So they both freeze. And when water inside of pipe freeze.
Speaker 3: You know, they when it turns ice, it kind of expands,
Speaker 3: it's it breaks the pipe.
Speaker 2: It can stretch the pipe.
Speaker 3: Copper can get a big bubble in it, and then
Speaker 3: a split pecs can just crack. But sometimes they're just
Speaker 3: frozen and there's no damage, and that's really when you
Speaker 3: want to catch it, and when you find where the
Speaker 3: frozen pipe is. So if you're not getting water out
Speaker 3: of the tap, you got to kind of figure out that.
Speaker 2: Where that pipe goes, and you can usually quickly find
Speaker 2: where it's vulnerable.
Speaker 3: May it's supposed to be in a walll cavity with
Speaker 3: insulation around it, and yet it you know, when they
Speaker 3: built the house, maybe the plumber missed the cavity.
Speaker 2: And that happened to me, and you know, so you
Speaker 2: got to get up there.
Speaker 3: But doing it before it gets really cold is a
Speaker 3: good time to do it. But once you're not getting
Speaker 3: water out, find a pipe, and that's when you start
Speaker 3: the process.
Speaker 2: Of falling it.
Speaker 3: The first thing you do is open up the faucet
Speaker 3: that wasn't delivering the water.
Speaker 2: Keep it open, and.
Speaker 3: Then pecks is going to be a little bit more sensitive.
Speaker 2: Of how you thought it.
Speaker 3: Never use an open flame, boy, I remember back in
Speaker 3: the winters when we had really harsh winters, people trying
Speaker 3: to fall pipes with torches propane torches.
Speaker 2: Never do that.
Speaker 3: It's such a huge dramatic change in temperatures. You can split,
Speaker 3: you can split the pipe, and you could melt the pecks.
Speaker 2: So for a copper pipe, you can you know, you
Speaker 2: can use a heat gun just to put it on medium,
Speaker 2: just kind of warm it. You could use a hair dryer,
Speaker 2: That's what I was wondering about. A blow dryer. Yeah, sure, sure,
Speaker 2: I've thought many a pipe with a hair dryer. I mean,
Speaker 2: you gotta be patient.
Speaker 3: You got to sit there for five or ten minutes,
Speaker 3: you know, when you're sitting in the attic on Christmas morning,
Speaker 3: which I was, and then when you hear the water run.
Speaker 2: And say, yahoo, right right right right.
Speaker 3: Warm towels can even thaw it. But you know, with pecks,
Speaker 3: you want to you know, again, no open flame. You
Speaker 3: want to be a little less aggressive. I don't know,
Speaker 3: a heat gun might be pushing a little bit. I
Speaker 3: prefer a hair dryer, but you could use a heat
Speaker 3: gun if you put it on low. But you know,
Speaker 3: just don't use an open flame.
Speaker 2: I know there's still people that do that.
Speaker 3: It falls it fast, but a lot of cases that
Speaker 3: pipe will burst, and it will burst maybe behind a wall,
Speaker 3: and then you got a real problem.
Speaker 2: Ah, you talked about it.
Speaker 1: Wrap styrofoam wrap, But is that the best thing to prevent, say,
Speaker 1: future freezing. You know, maybe they haven't frozen yet because,
Speaker 1: like you talked about, what, we're not there yet. But
Speaker 1: is that the best thing to do as far as
Speaker 1: preventing it happening anytime soon?
Speaker 3: Yeah, unless you're in a really really like maybe a
Speaker 3: garage and you, I don't know, have virtually a really
Speaker 3: really old door where that garage can get down to
Speaker 3: zero degrees when it's below zero outside. You know, the
Speaker 3: foam wrap will help ninety percent of the time if
Speaker 3: it's a really exposed area. I don't know why you
Speaker 3: would have a copper pipe. Let's say there's one running
Speaker 3: underneath the deck or something, and you didn't shut off
Speaker 3: the water on the inside and drain it in the fall.
Speaker 3: The only way, you know, a heat or foam rap
Speaker 3: is going to help you there. You almost got to
Speaker 3: have a heat tape. And a heat tape is about
Speaker 3: let's say an inch wide.
Speaker 2: You don't over.
Speaker 3: App a heat tape, but you wrap around the pipe
Speaker 3: with about a three in space between it.
Speaker 2: It's got a thermostat in it.
Speaker 3: You set it at thirty nine degrees and it keeps
Speaker 3: that pipe warm and water flowing.
Speaker 2: Make sure its UL approve though.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you would be able to tell that what
Speaker 1: what do you mean be able to No, I mean
Speaker 1: there's markings on it that it is approved.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah right, you don't have the UL
Speaker 2: tag on it for sure. Yeah, good question. Okay, all right, all.
Speaker 1: Right now, And just for the record, if you don't
Speaker 1: address these things, and all of a sudden you have
Speaker 1: a water pipe burst, yeah, you are looking at some
Speaker 1: serious cash and maybe significant damage.
Speaker 3: Well, absolutely, because unless you shut off the water, you'll
Speaker 3: still have water into pipes.
Speaker 2: You'll still have a disaster.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you have a pipe that's frozen,
Speaker 3: and let's say you discovered maybe a day later, like
Speaker 3: right now, we don't use the upstairs kids have own.
Speaker 2: And when it.
Speaker 3: Gets down, I would say when it's down in single digits,
Speaker 3: are below zero, that's when pipes inside the home become vulnerable,
Speaker 3: if they're exposed to areas that aren't heated, attics, cross spaces, garages,
Speaker 3: outside walls, just as we talked about. And you know,
Speaker 3: if you if you find a frozen pipe and you
Speaker 3: know you're on your way to work or something, I
Speaker 3: would certainly shut off the water, maybe drain the water
Speaker 3: out of the pipes with the other.
Speaker 2: Faucets, because if you leave.
Speaker 3: Water in those pipes under pressure and it's frozen and
Speaker 3: that copper line splits, you got the full force of
Speaker 3: that whole water system spewing water on the inside of
Speaker 3: the walls. That's a big, big problem. That a big
Speaker 3: that's a big problem. That's that's when it gets real expensive.
Speaker 3: And then you know, you know, you still got to pipe,
Speaker 3: prepare and everything else. But that's the least of your problems.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Great catching up with you. My
Speaker 1: friend really enjoyed it last night.
Speaker 2: It was fun. It was fun, all right, buddy.
Speaker 1: You have a great rest of your weekend and we'll
Speaker 1: listen to you on fifty five KRC starting on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Very good, Thanks Tonning, Gary Sullivan kind enough to join
Speaker 1: us as he does every single Thursday. Hope that helped you.
Speaker 1: I mean believe you heard it from him. He's the expert.
Speaker 1: You have one of those bad boys freeze up and
Speaker 1: you don't have the water turned off, and that thing
Speaker 1: splits or ruptures entirely. Lord knows the amount of damage
Speaker 1: that can be done to your house and things that
Speaker 1: are important to you.