I'm seeing a few of my friends in Texas with burst pipes. That was one of the things I had the bad feeling was going to happen when I heard about the cold snap and especially when reports that a lot of home's in Texas were losing power. The coldest I can remember as a kid in Houston was the temperature dropped to 19 degrees on Christmas eve 1982 and our pipes burst. Our pipes were uninsulated plastic (PVC) and ran near the outside of the house. When I bought my house in Minnesota the first month I owned it before I moved in I was out of town for a week and the heat failed. It got so cold in this house that the toilet froze. When I got the heat restored though my pipes were fine because they were copper pipes and also since they were located well inside the house and mainly ran in the basement they were fine. Copper pipes can flex so even if frozen have some give. Unfortunately for those with burst pipes right now there's not much that can be done. Turn off the main shut off valve into the house, clean up and stock up on bottled water until you can get fixed. When you get your pipes fixed though look into getting copper pipes. You can also insulate your pipes with as simple as wrapping them with towels. Insulating them isn't just to keep them from freezing but can help your energy bills by preventing the loss of heat from the hot water back into the house. This can even help your AC when in summer your hot water pipes are essentially radiators. Also in the summer it can keep your cold water cold.
Posting this here too. Resources for help including Warming Centers throughout Texas. Don't take any chances with the cold, no power, and no water.. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-power-outage-help-warming-shelter/ Houston: Lakewood Church, the Gallery Furniture store and multiple other warming shelters have opened in the area. Accommodations vary by shelter, but most have blankets and other supplies for people in the Houston area seeking warmth. The George R. Brown Convention Center opened as a warming center, but it is at full capacity and it is no longer accepting more people, according to KHOU. Homeless outreach teams from the sheriff’s office, police department, and homeless outreach groups have worked to provide rides to the warming centers. Houston area residents can call the Harris County Sheriff's Office non-emergency line at 713-221-6000 or 311 for information about shelter or transportation. The sheriff’s office Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) has been providing items like coats, blankets and tents to people experiencing homelessness who are not in a warming center. People can donate here to any of the organizations in The Way Home, a coalition of organizations working to prevent homelessness.
instead of advising people to drip their faucets during a freeze, why not ask them to shut off water at the main valve and open the faucets to drain the lines especially at night time? Sure, it's an inconvenience when you have to flush but at least there's no risk of your pipes bursting. Turn it back on in the morning when it is warming. Are there risks I'm not considering?
Not sure why anyone else would be responsible except the home owner. I'm not referring to shutting off at the water meter, but the valve between the meter and the house.
This is what I did (have kept off since Monday night), my dad was going to do the same if he lost power Mon/Tues but his stayed on. My guess is that they don't recommend this at a city level for sanitary purposes and so that there isn't a run on bottled water (ironic eh?). I saw someone ask this same question on Nextdoor and the responses were comical -- "you need water to flush the toilets!!" -- nevermind filling your bathtub and using that. I also guess that some water stays in the pipes even if you turn off and drain at the faucet, perhaps near the hot water heater and at any 90 degree turns, but I think it still would cut down on the risk of bursting by a lot.
Plus people will just find a way to mess anything up. I advised doing specifically this to someone with little pipe insulation who would not be home anyway, and they turned it off at the main valve at the house instead of the meter. Ofc you know what happened.
Other than opening his taps to relieve the pressure, aren't you supposed to turn off the property owner valve? You're not supposed to touch the city meter. All my neighbors have been turning off the city meter instead of the property shutoff. They don't realize we have three valves. City meter, property valve, and irrigation valve.
Gorilla Glue as outdoor PVC insulation? Might need the services of Curly, Larry and Moe for that project.
They might realize What valves they have, but also realize that Everything on the house side of the meter is their responsibility, and is more vulnerable- beyond the meter valve, smaller diameter pipe, buried shallower, and in this case theirs was not properly winterized out of the ground at the house, exposed. Theirs ruptured right there before the cut off at the house. But no you can turn your water off at the meter, no rules against that. Even if the city said don't do it... I mean the city requested that residents not drip their faucets through multiple days of deep freeze trying to keep pipes from bursting (That's a risk They were willing to take).
