quote:

All of this was probably pretty common back in that time frame. Housing was going up fast and the builders did a half-a$$ed job.

The house we bought (and sold last summer) was built in 1960. In many ways it was a great house and seemed very well built, but I can remember how often people would "they don't build 'em like they used to" -- I always was sort of suspicious of that sentiment, because buildings codes (for one) are certainly much better now...

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Originally posted by wtg:
Our two story house with attached garage was built in 1960.

The water pipes to our kitchen sink come up through the floor from the basement. The sink is on an outside wall, so we have the scenario that Steve described.

The pipes that have frozen in the past are in a second floor bath. Those go up through the wall that is common between the unheated garage and the house. They can't be run up through the floor, because that's where the kitchen cabinets are.

When we first moved in, and before the great freeze, we had noticed a lot of cold air in the winter in that bathroom. After the freeze, we had the wallboard on the garage side taken down and discovered that there was insufficient insulation. The bathtub was cantilevered out into the garage and the only insulation was the wallboard around it, along with a one inch thick piece of styrofoam insulation. Along with the water pipes, the drain for that tub also froze that cold winter. The rest was bad as well. We built out the wall into the garage to support the tubs and hadi everything insulated with fiberglass; spray foam wasn't a thing back then. At least we didn't know about it. There is still some air getting in there, but we don't know from where. Probably should have it redone.

When we replaced the original windows, we found crumpled newspaper to fill the gaps around the window framing.

All of this was probably pretty common back in that time frame. Housing was going up fast and the builders did a half-a$$ed job.

My house in Massachusetts was built in 1997. The master bath was built all the way in one corner … with insufficient insulation and no waterproof membrane under the tile. As a result, in the winter, the corner would pull apart, water would seep into the walls from the shower, and it started to rot. I wound up having to redo the shower to fix it.

i'm starting to think my next house is one i have built to my specs. i'll start watching the youtube videos on how to do it now.

I’m starting to think you should move to NE Ohio for the weather!

can't handle that kind of traffic any more.

Speaking of freezing pipes---

We got hit hard by the Portland storms. We're in a part of town that's surrounded by a lot of trees, elevation and hills. Our power went sometime overnight on Friday night/Saturday morning. I slept at the FREEZING (literally) house on Friday and Saturday, and bailed on Monday for a hotel. Power returned Tuesday, but it was iffy. We decided to go to the house and get a few things, but return to the hotel in case the power went out again.

Tuesday - Thursday continued with high winds and ice, but power remained on. My daughter and husband were able to get to the house on Thursday, opened the door and were blasted with hot, steamy air. Turns out we have two frozen pipes but our intrepid tankless water heater continued to create limitless hot water which then poured through the house. We turned off the water, power, and gas to the house, and got outta there.

Significant damage to (at minimum) damage to floors/ceilings between 2nd and first floor, and first floor and basement - since the pipes that burst were on the 2nd and first floors. Nothing apparently structural, thank heavens. But now we're queued up with the thousands of others waiting to get contractors, clean-up crews, etc. - and we STILL can't get back to our house again, due to continued freezing rain. This weekend will hopefully improve things, as it's now quite warm.

So I am totally freaked out by this. We're in a long-term stay hotel, we're all fine and we keep saying, "It's just stuff." And I've learned some things I could have done to possibly have helped the situation, but maybe not. We're just not set up for that level of cold (12-14 degrees over multiple days with wind).

So I just came here to vent a bit. At some point but NOT TODAY I'll return and ask for suggestions for future planning, but I really can't handle much right now. It's been surprisingly difficult psychologically, and I tend to think of myself as a somewhat reasonable and optimistic person.

So now you've heard my tale of woe. We have a clean-up assessor coming out tomorrow (assuming we can get to the house, fingers crossed). This last week has been unreal - with people even in my neck of the woods totally unaffected (other than slippery roads) and others devastated. In the grand scheme of things we could have done a lot worse - no trees have fallen on/destroyed our house, for example.

Freaky.

That's some saga, and I'm very sorry that you're going through it. Sending long distance hugs and support...

OMG Nina, that sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Of course it's difficult psychologically! Oh dear.

I will keep you in my thoughts and best wishes that you get through this and that it's not as bad as you fear, and that the repairs are do-able and all of that!

Hang in there!!

Yikes!

OMG Nina, I am so sorry you are going through this. That’s horrific.

I have a another friend with a tree that came down on her house, punching through the living room ceiling. It’s been about a week, and today the crews could finally get up on top of her roof and cut up the tree. They’re in outer Southeast.

We have all sorts of branches down in the back yard, but nothing broken. It’s been a wild week. Ice is the pits.

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Originally posted by wtg:
I turned on the kitchen faucet and zero water pressure. Since I had been running water five minutes earlier, I knew it couldn't be frozen pipes; that doesn't happen that fast. Looked out the front window and can see public works trucks down the street...broken water main...

Another water main break this morning, across the street from the last one. This time we saw the public works trucks before the water got shut off, so we managed to fill a bunch of pans and buckets.

Welcome to winter. Again.

Aaand we're back. Repair was even quicker this time. I went out to thank the crew in front of our house as they were turning the water back on. They always look apprehensive as a resident approaches. I think people come out and yell at them about the water main breaks (as if it's their fault). They always break out in big smiles when I thank them effusively for their hard work in trying conditions.

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They always break out in big smiles when I thank them effusively for their hard work in trying conditions.

Yep. It doesn't take much to share gratitude, but it means an awful lot!!

I've been waiting for a water main to break here (mainly after reading you post about it the first time) but it hasn't happened in our neighborhood yet. (knock on wood!)

At the request of the property management company, we've been running our water (kitchen faucet) on a super slow drip (drizzle) almost continuously every day since last weekend. A few times we turned it off during the day but kept it dripping over night. We'll probably turn it off some time today, and then back on over night, and then the temps are going to get above freezing, whew.

Anyway I wonder how much of an addition we'll see to our water bill because of that...

Oh Nina - what a nightmare scenario!

Ugh.

OMG Nina! That is just awful. Hugs!