re: Louisiana Ice Storm Thread *Winter Storm Warning*

quote:

---

So will Baton Rouge be in single digits

---

Nah, it's February and we average a murder every other day.

My phone says 6-9 inches of snow for downtown br on Monday

This is a joke right?

quote:

---

I would assume the best bet is leave the water trickling so it's always moving and doesn't have time to freeze.

---

That's typically what we do up here when it gets below zero. Make sure faucets are dripping and open cabinets around pipes so the warmer air in the house can circulate around them.

If you lose power, that's likely when you'd need to start draining stuff before it freezes. And unhook your washing machines hoses (that seems to be one folks miss).

Even the HRRR shows a temperature 8-10 degrees colder on the THU-FRI overnight low than what the NWS shows

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.448810000000037&lon=-91.18823499999996

Whatever app that is is shite. We’re not getting snow. We’re getting ice.

Weather channel app finally calling for snow and ice Sunday evening thru Monday night in Lafayette. Over an inch possible

quote:

---

how to do this?

---

There's a connection on the bottom of the tank that you hook a garden hose up to. Then just run the other end of the house outside or into a nearby sink. Make sure you turn the water off to the water heater, or it'll just start filling back up. Shut off valve is on the pipe running into the water heater. Should look just like the handle on your outdoor spigot.

You really only need to do this if you lose power and it's going to be below freezing for multiple days.

If it's an electric heater. Gas should be fine.

quote:

---

how to do this?

---

There should be a valve at the bottom of the water heater that has a connection like your outdoor faucets. If it doesn't have a drain pan routed outside the house, you can hook a hose up to it and run it outside. Make sure the end of the hose is lower than the faucet and it should siphon once you get it started.

quote:

---

What is the hot water heater is in the house and I keep the heat on? Sorry, I know nothing.

---

The water heater should be fine itself in that situation. It will feed the hot water pipes, though, and keep them filled with water. If those lines are exposed, they will freeze as easily as the cold water lines will.

Don't forget that if you have pipes near an outside wall that might be exposed to these kinds of extreme temps, you need to run both the hot and the cold water. They are two separate loops and either can freeze and burst. My insurance company wrote a check for $170k right before they dropped me for damage due to a burst hot water line in the cold snap of 2011 or so when it was like 15 degrees in Baton Rudge. Every faucet in the house was trickling both hot and cold, too, but the builder put the damned water heaters in the attic and the lines froze in the attic anyway.

My neighbor called at work in the middle of the afternoon to tell me water was pouring out of the house at the slab and I came home to four inches of water in my house and half the ceilings collapsed.