Trickling water during freeze

I just trickle the cold side and slightly open the tap farthest from the incoming supply line. Edited to add that line would be the tap outside the back of my house that my garden hose is attached to.

That said, all my pipes are almost 100% enclosed in my structure between floors with only two cold water lines outside the enclosed area.

They are wrapped in pipe insulation, but the faucet is not.

When I lived in a raised house with my water lines running under the house, I opened both hot and cold lines enough to drip during the freezing weather.

I don't bother unless its getting below 20, although it got down to 19 last night and I didn't drip as the predicted low was 25. But since it was 70 for the high yesterday there was plenty of warmth in the walls. I have an old, raised pier & beam house with just basic pipe foam wrap insulation and the only pipe that has ever frozen is my toilet feed pipe that is at a west outside wall near a foundation vent. This has happened twice, last year when it was -2 and below freezing for a week and in 2011 when we were frozen in for a week during the super bowl here in Dallas. With that said, I will drip hot and cold water.

I had every facet dripping hot and cold for a week last year in the Dallas freeze. I didn’t drop anything last night when it was 19.

Set delay on washing machine or dish washer to kick on during the coldest part of the night.


Profit.

quote:

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or hot water too?

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Yes. Hot water too.
The water in a hot water pipe does not magically remain hot thus preventing it from freezing. Hence why when you first turn on hot water and depending on how far away from the water heater the faucet is, you must wait for the water coming out to actually become hot.