photo of B. is just for fun and has no relevance to the blog post.
Just FYI.
We're about to get socked with cold weather that most of us central Texans are totally unprepared for. The forecast low for Tuesday morning is 3 degrees Fahrenheit. We've never, ever seen three degrees in Austin, Texas before. Never. Most of our water pipes are buried about three inches down in the ground and we all fear that the number of pipes rupturing next week will be mind-boggling and horrible. We're also pretty sure that most of the plants we've loved and nurtured will be dead as a doornail by the end of a week that will feature lows in the teens, and low 20's, throughout. I'm making a valiant attempt to put a foot of mulch over the root beds of my smaller trees; like my Japanese maples and I may wrap my smallest Japanese maple with a Christo-esque swirl of muslin background fabric.
I found the spot on the property where the water pipes meet the meter box and realized that about six inches of pipe is above ground!!! I've actually built an enclosure for them with layers of insulation around them in all directions and a 8 inch layer of hardwood mulch over the top of the construction. We'll keep those faucets dripping on Sunday (12°) and especially on Monday (3°). If we get through that we'll hold our breaths for the rest of the week as we pilot through the low 20's.
I went for a walk this morning figuring that today and tomorrow will be the last really walkable days until maybe Wednesday. We don't have snow blowers here, or snow shovels, and there's not a ready supply of rock salt for driveways and sidewalks. In fact, I was on a main road this morning that still had lots of icy patches from last night. All the pedestrian bridges downtown were icy this morning and untreated. I think the city has a different set of priorities. Like sheltering our large and growing homeless population.
Belinda headed to the grocery store earlier this morning and when she came back home she told me that the store (an enormously large operation) had been well picked over by last night and they were waiting for re-supplies which come from San Antonio. The delays right now on IH-35 are legendary and people are being cautious after hearing news of last night's 100+ car and truck pile up just north of Ft. Worth, on IH-35. Seven people, so far, died on that icy stretch and estimates are that 70 or more were injured. The news footage looked as through an aerial bombing run had taken place down a long stretch of the interstate.
I'm heading out to put mulch are one or two more trees and then I'm coming back to spend some time writing about some impressions of the Leica SL2 as well as the Sigma 70mm f2.8 Macro L Art lens.
I know that to northerners our sense of almost desperation over the winter weather conditions seems overblown but imagine if the conditions were reversed and you found yourselves living through a week or so of 112° days with high humidity and it was something that was rare enough to be maybe a one hundred year cycle.
The emergency sales of air conditioners would be off the charts. And sunscreen.
Wish us luck. It'll be touch and go for a week. Then we should thaw out and get back to normal.
Additional tragedy? The pool is closed today and will be closed Sunday, Monday and most probably Tuesday. I am almost inconsolable.
Hot tea to the rescue.
Saturday afternoon addenda: The Weather Service has revised our forecast down to 1° on Monday, as a low. They have also revised Sunday's low down to 10°.
Heading into Canadian Territory now. Not sure what vegetation will survive. The end is near....
28 comments:
I am going to put an incandescent spotlight I have leftover from Christmas decor under the tarp and try to keep a palm alive.
Thanks for sharing that Frank. I've got a small Japanese maple that I want to preserve, now looking for my tarp and some old, incandescent holiday lights. Amazing what we can find in the shed in the back yard... Stay warm, stay safe. And make sure to keep those faucets dripping!
If you have outside faucets protruding from the foundation or exterior walls, wrap them. Better, check inside to see if there are shutoff valves on the pipes leading to the exterior faucets. Close the valves, drain the faucets, then wrap. Best of luck.
There have been problems here in upstate NY when the power goes out in the winter with pipes freezing and breaking. Years ago the heating oil ran out in a small apartment building that I was living in and the paint on the kitchen walls contracted and came off in sheets from the cold.
I wish I could send you down a truck load or two of dirt to protect your plants and pipes.
Hi Kirk.
The cold spell is hitting Canada too. -25 Centigrade at midday, here in Québec. Try to protect as much as you can. Let the rest go. You can always start over later.
Annus horriblilis!
Good luck!
Beautiful photograph of a beautiful lady, then and now.
I agree with you Kirk, I can stand -40 no problem but 112 and high humidity would do me in.
I agree with the suggestion to close the shut off valves on your outside taps and then drain them. Wrapping isn't something we do.
Our water mains are at least 8 to 10 feet below the surface. Currently the frost line is around 7 feet down.
I hope you are able to save your plants, it's so sad to see them die. Keep warm and remember to walk like a duck when you are on ice!
Eric
If you haven't already, disconnect outside hoses.
undone em and drained em. Thanks!
Kirk:
You are doing all the right things. Mulching your water meter and outside pipes is a stroke of genius!
Since I live in a cold climate such worries do not come into my view often. However, I well recall a Christmas in Northern California where the temps fell into the teens. All the water lines laying on the ground froze and so did we!
Don't forget to open all the cabinet doors under your sinks to let the warmer room air bathe the pipes, especially those near outside walls.
Best of luck!
CDC
Thanks Chris, Good to know! I have all the cabinet doors open (where plumbing is located) in the kitchen and the bathrooms. I'd hate to bust a pipe if I can help it.
If your house is raised above the ground with an open crawl space beneath, beware that plumbing can freeze there too, and you might want to keep the tab faucet dripping slowly.
Jeff in Colorado
Thanks Jeff, but the house is built on a slab. If I had a crawl space I'd just want to rent it out. You know, rates in Austin are going crazy right now. 😉
All good, both the steps you've taken, and the advice you've received.
What kind of heating system do you have? Do you have a backup, like a fireplace, even though they are grossly inefficient?
Hi MikeR. The house is heated with natural gas and the office by electric. The office is non-critical for the week. I'm keeping it heated to 65° just in case I want to escape the house for while. And to keep the cameras comfortable. We do have a fireplace and have stocked in firewood, just in case. We have enough sofa space in the living room to accommodate all of us (3) so we could last a few days by sticking close to the fire place and wrapping up in down blankets, etc.
Our emergency plan, should the power go off, is to check into a nice hotel (one with room service. Since one of my clients is the Four Seasons local property we'd probably head there and try to get a corner suite). Our cars are all 4-wheel drive Subarus and Belinda is now happy that she opted for the heated seats.
And I'm sure that following next week, after all our preparations, we'll end up in a heat wave.
Thanks for double checking. I'm a rank amateur at this cold weather survival stuff. All suggestions are carefully logged.
You're good. Just be sure it's the right "Four Seasons!"
Did you see this ad during the Super Bowl? Philly's finest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelsNvpibpQ&feature=emb_logo
I had a client (IT) not far from there, some years back.
Oof, that's so far off-chart it's hard to know what to do. Seems like you've prepared as best as is reasonable. Good luck!
First winter in our (California) house we had an off-the-chart cold snap, low of 18 F, and only because the '20s vintage furnace dumped vast amounts of heat into the crawlspace did we escape burst pipes...at least IN the house. Some neighbors not only had their water supply lines burst but their cast iron sewer pipes burst too.later
One outcome was millions of eucalyptus trees around the state were killed and a dead eucalyptus is essentially a freeze-dried can of gasoline. The Oakland Hills Fire occurred later that year.
Best wishes.
O Kirk, I'm so sorry to hear this. I had no idea how bad this could be! Wishing you the best possible outcome
Don't forget to check your garage for water-based liquids stored there like herbicides, fertilizers, cleaning fluids, etc.
Good recommendations here in the comments, and it sounds like you're already taking the appropriate steps to keep your pipes from freezing. Living in Minnesota, with a cabin further north in western Wisconsin, we get used to dealing with the cold, but this week is going to be wild even for us. Right now it's -26 degrees at our cabin, which we keep heated even when not there to keep the pipes from freezing. In the twin cities we live in an apartment so not much for us to do. But you should be ok with the steps you've taken.
A simple "drop cord" mechanics light with a real light bulb puts out more heat than some realize. North location here. We put one in the well a few feet down(not close to water level) and it helps keep the pipe to the house from freezing. Our pipe depth is more than 8 feet(code depth) and they can still freeze if we don't get snow covering the ground before 30 below weeks start.
Wrapping plants in plastic and putting a light bulb/lamp/drop cord light inside can help a lot to keep things alive. A construction light - the Quartz type with shatter proof glass and metal shield over it puts out a LOT of heat - and Home Depot/Lowes and similar seldom run out of them.
DON'T FORGET TO CHECK YOUR ANTI FREEZE IN VEHICLES.
Good luck - cold is nothing to trifle with. Right now it is 38 below with wind chill around 60 below here. Should warm to 18 below later on. Even when used to it - Cold can kill and do a lot of damage.
I cut my teeth on extreme weather conditions designing and maintaining water systems in remote Eskimo villages in Alaska where temps can go to -40˚F or˚C (fun fact that -40˚ is the same on both scales) . The number one reason pipes freeze is cold air impinging directly on a pipe. It may be just a small crack from outside, but if it blows directly on a pipe it will freeze it solid even if the water is dripping in the sink. It's not a bad idea to let them drip but equally important to give them a good flush periodically. Another tip from up north, hot water pipes tend to freeze more often than cold water pipes - reason is that hot water is not run as often as cold water and many times hot water lines are plumbed with a smaller diameter pipe.
The ground is a huge thermal mass surrounding the roots of your trees.
When the air is cold, heat will move upward toward the surface. Mulch, or old newspapers, will allow this warmth to keep ground from freezing very deep unless the cold spell is extremely long. Same goes for pipes underground. I now live in balmy in Vermont (-11˚F this morning) and my Japanese maple has survived -22˚F.
I hope that there are homeless shelters in Austin that can cope with the weather.
Dripping won't do it. Trickle. I'm in Montreal, and even with adequate insulation pipes can freeze if they run near outside walls.
Up here in Kansas City, we have had a full week of this Icy Nightmare. No sun and gloom all over town, with the added sadness of the Kansas City Chief's Embarrassing Defeat in Super Bowl 55. There is no way anyone can expect to drive safely on ice like we all have now. We wish our Texas Friends a short Cold Snap and no damages to the people or the vegetation.
Greetings from NNY near the Quebec border where such temperatures are are the norm in winter. As reassurance, my daughter in Endicott, NY (bottom of the state but still commonly very cold in winter) has a Japanese Maple in her front yard that thrives despite the cold. I don't think you need to be concerned about them. The water pipes OTOH are potential problems. In this area when we get deep cold, -20° and colder, municipalities say to leave one tap running about the thickness of pencil lead. The principle is that moving water doesn't freeze. Our son lives in Round Rock. I wish you all luck getting through this.
Yeah, it's cold, but sounds like you are taking good prep. Here in Duluth it was -20 F this morning. After so many days of this, combined with Covid, I think people are really getting down. It hurts too much to go out for long.
I lived on a island in Florida for 35 years. In the 90s we had a cold Christmas with highs in the 20s that killed almost all the trees. I had about 30 coconut palms in my yard. I bought a roll of 30 lb tarpaper and wrapped the trucks. The black paper absorbed the sun and I didn't lose a tree.
We're predicted to go to 0 on Sunday night in Santa Fe. That's uncommon, but single digits aren't, particularly. We're predicted to get a 9 on Wednesday night. I've got four Japanese maples, a few years old, and the cold doesn't seem to bother them. The real problem in Santa Fe is that we have these cold snaps deep into spring -- we've been under 20 in early May. That kills buds and flowers on fruit trees, and that happens on a regular basis. We have an old cherry tree that produces wonderful cherries when a freeze doesn't get them, and I'm thinking this year I might try to wrap it if we get a cold snap, and then maybe put a charcoal burner under it for a few hours (I'd need a hundred yards of electric cord to reach it with a light bulb.) But, this kind of thing happens frequently, and we're not nearly in the kind of trouble Austin is. I expect at any moment to have an outbreak of global warming denialism...don't expect to see any here.
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