The whole country is in the midst of what the media likes to dramatically call an arctic blast. We are no exception. Our forecasted low for tonight is one degree below zero.
This happens every winter here, but this year, it got us. I got home from work yesterday to find all our water pipes frozen.
Boooooo.
It's kind of funny that it happened during the day instead of overnight, but that's when the wind picked up. It was 10 degrees with about 20-mile-an-hour winds by the time I got home, and A. doesn't really run water much when he's home alone.
But more importantly, the bag of wool we use as an insulator where the village water connects to our house had been removed at some point during warmer weather and never was put back.
Thus, frozen pipes.
This is the first time this has happened to us here, and while it is a bummer, it's not as dire as it could be. The village well house has a tap in it, so A. went up there and filled five-gallon buckets of water for the animals and us.
He asked me last night before he did this where he might find lids for the buckets, so the water wouldn't slosh out of the buckets and into the bed of the truck while he was bringing them home. I knew I had seen a couple of lids in the pasture, so I went out in the frigid night with a spotlight to find them.
I found them, but they were frozen to the ground.
So fun.
I did manage to pry them up with a hammer, though. With the other three lids we found, A. got 25 gallons of water. Ten of those were for the animals, so he brought three buckets into the house for flushing toilets, etc.
Part of the "etc." is washing dishes. Much as I dislike waking up to a messy kitchen, I just didn't have it in me to do it last night. But this morning, I have the water sieved and starting to heat on the woodstove--to be brought later to the actual boil on the propane stove--so I can have one pan of soapy water in the sink for washing and one pan of boiling water for rinsing.
Doing dishes this way isn't ideal, but it's not going to get above freezing until tomorrow afternoon, so the odds of having running water until then aren't great. And we need the utensils if nothing else. I do have paper plates, but I do not have plastic utensils.
The very cold weather has also frozen the outside drain line from the furnace, which I discovered this weekend when I woke up to a 50-degree house. This has happened before, so we knew to disconnect the hose inside the furnace closet and let it drip into something on the floor.
The furnace really only runs at night, because the woodstove heats the house during the day. That dish can't hold all the water that drips from the furnace at night, though, so I have to get up once in the night to empty it, lest it over flow all over the floor.
Also, a little PSA for you: I had no idea that the condensate liquid from furnaces and boilers is toxic, but it is. I was going to give some to the dogs before A. stopped me to tell me it's really dangerous. I thought it was just water condensed from the hot furnace and cold air, but it's not. I'm sure glad A. knew this.
None of this is particularly fun, but it's temporary. After tonight's very low low temperature, it's supposed to get to the mid-forties tomorrow afternoon. And the next day is going to be 50 degrees. So we will thaw out. And it would be much worse if we couldn't get water anywhere, even in buckets.
So tell me: How are you weathering the blast?
9 comments:
So sorry about the pipes!
We are on our 4th snow day- bitter weather and wind chills and snow on the local roads still mean no school. I had to go to work- at least the main road was clear- and so kids are going feral at home.
Do you have a handy hair dryer? I have used that to defrost the frozen pipes in Minnesota. Of course, I only had to use it on an inside pipe! Take care! Mary in MN
mbmom11: I hope your house isn't a complete wreck when you get home.
Mary in MN: Yes, A. tried the hair dryer (which, amusingly, I never actually use for my hair). Didn't work. Boo.
Frozen pipes are no fun. But you have reminded me that I have some bags of untanned sheep hides that I can pile up on the south side of the kitchen if we get a cold south wind. Thus far out cold has not come with strong winds, so we are safe for now. AND I can turn up the blower in the basement if the wind comes up. All good to remember!
Since you asked. I tarped the unenclosed porch before this cold got here. Stacked wood in it, since it is just me now,I would get some on the truck one evening , move it into porch on next day. Pretty much on the porch, tarp keeps wind snow and ice from coming in on the wood and me.
Brought the whole wheelbarrow loaded up into the house with several arm loads extra. Heat with wood, so that means up at night firing wood stove. House is one level, big wood stove in biggest room. Electric blanket on bed to preheat before getting in . It stays about 8 degrees colder in bedroom than big room. I slept one night on the day bed in by the stove, next night I had it 77 degrees in big room and moved to bedroom to sleep. I think the wind had died down.Cabinet doors open to water pipe areas.
Everything tastes better cooked on the wood stove.
Frozen pipes make for a bad day for sure. Propane torch usually does the trick, I urge caution though. The only pipes in the house that we have to concern ourselves with is the one under our kitchen sink. Leaving the cupboard door open usually prevents issues. The other is the above ground pipe that goes to our pump. We've Styrofoam, insulated and covered it with a heavy plastic box and this helps enormously.
As for us we are currently buried under around three feet of snow with an ice storm (aka freezing rain) on the way on top of that. Right at this moment it's 12 degrees with a predicted nosedive into the single digits if not negative temps come nightfall.
So yeah. It's cold. As for how we are handling all this winter stuff, well...
We are pretty good about taking preventative measures to ensure things will be ok during bad weather and the possibility (more like inevitability) of losing power. Aside from making sure everything from the vehicles to the goat's pen and houses and our house and other buildings are winterized we make sure the following is covered:
I should mention here that no, we are not extreme preppers, but we do live in the country which requires a certain level of preparedness and a lot of self-sufficiency even in the best of weather conditions.
Water supplies for us and our animals (yes there is snow on the ground, but it takes a lot of effort and time to melt it believe it or not. I do fill up a few plastic buckets of it to have in our bathtub for toilet flushing purposes though.)
Food is usually no issue. We spend a lot of time in the summer preserving and we also have a freezer full of various meat and produce. Our pantry is always well stocked year-round. I estimate that we could live off of what we have for at least 4 months if not longer. No fresh food though so there is that if we are stuck and can't get anywhere. It's happened but we were fed anyway. Household supplies are also stockpiled like our food stores as well as food for our animals.
Heating and cooking: Central heating is what we have, also a pellet stove in the living room but if the power goes out we have propane heaters that once were inside a camper that keep us warm. And of course, lots of flannel and sweaters as well as thermal undies and snow suits are worn for when we go outside which is often when you have critters to look after. We also have a wood stove in the shop which we cook on (good old cast iron can't be beat) we also have a camp stove and BBQ.
For light: White gas Coleman lanterns (so noisy but nice and bright), a few battery-powered camp lanterns, an old oil lamp, flashlights and of course candles.
So. Shelter, food, heat, light. Got all that covered. I would get into how we keep ourselves entertained while house bound but this post of mine is turning into a short story, sorry about that.
Everyone stay warm!
It's a real pain to be in a house full of "modern conveniences" that you can't use. I wouldn't exactly wish for an outhouse, but there are times it would be handy. So far we have electricity though, and the pipes are ok so far too. I hope your pipes are back in business soon.
I went out with wet hair (and a hat) for less than 10 minutes and came back in with frozen hair. It's cold, but I didn't think it was *that* cold.
We had power through the whole thing, which is a minor miracle in Texas. The new frost free spigot at the barn didn't fare so well, so we were hauling water for horses and cattle, but the power staying on meant that the heaters in most of the individual buckets worked, so we only had to chop ice in the outdoor troughs. The best part is that we didn't get ice on the ground. We only got about 1/2 inch of snow, it was 10 degrees when it fell overnight, and it blew off the roads by noon the next day.
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