Texas deep freeze carnage thread

[Bob Lives! 953]

The eternal truth remains true. Chili’s on 45th St. is still open


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[South Austin 53232]

10 minutes ago, Bob Lives! said:

The eternal truth remains true. Chili’s on 45th St. is still open.

That place will survive a nuclear winter.

[South Austin 53232]

@Pimphand, are you back on? A Facebook friend who seemed like he’s on the same circuit—based on his posts about his power coming on and going off—just posted that he’s back on. I’m still out, though.

[Armybrat 41420]

Son’s neighbor in Hutto says their power is back on, so hopefully they will return home tomorrow.

[ZB'Tejas 597]

My power just came on and I’m running through a few checks. I have a gas on-demand water heater. Anything that needs to be done? I never had hot water all week so not sure what might not be working here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pimphand 6373]

1 minute ago, South Austin said:

@Pimphand, are you back on? A Facebook friend who seemed like he’s on the same circuit—based on his posts about his power coming on and going off—just posted that he’s back on. I’m still out, though.

Nope still out here. The Taco Cabana at North Loop & Burnet is open now saw that on the drive home.  I just want the watts to kick in before nightfall.

[TwiceHorn 32087]

One positive note.  Stomping through the snow really cleans off your boots.

[South Austin 53232]

Just now, Pimphand said:

Nope still out here. The Taco Cabana at North Loop & Burnet is open now saw that on the drive home.  I just want the watts to kick in before nightfall.

Well hopefully we’re next up. 

[drt 646]

2 minutes ago, ZB'Tejas said:

My power just came on and I’m running through a few checks. I have a gas on-demand water heater. Anything that needs to be done? I never had hot water all week so not sure what might not be working here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Exterior or interior mounted water heater? If interior in your garage you’re probably ok to give it a shot when the house warms up. Exterior i would hairdryer the exposed water lines for a bit before I tried it. 

[Horn of Gabriel 1886]

1 minute ago, drt said:

Exterior or interior mounted water heater? If interior in your garage you’re probably ok to give it a shot when the house warms up. Exterior i would hairdryer the exposed water lines for a bit before I tried it. 

Our tankless was mounted in the attic and froze up and burst the small holding tank and some copper internal lines.  The plumber wants to sell me a new one @$1300 installed.  Says that the tankless are more plug/play units and can't really be internally repaired...does anyone know how true that is?

[GringoSalado 1653]

Your hot water heater should have a hose bib on the bottom, as well as a shut off up top for incoming water/pressure. Remember this if you ever run out of water, you should still have 30 gals or whatever in your water heater.

 

csb

Had a leak detected in my slab once by disconnecting service at meter, running hot water through the pipes via (gravity and) a garden hose from the hot water heater back to the meter, and then using thermal heat guns pointed at the floor to find the water line and the leak in the slab. /topical csb

[ZB'Tejas 597]

Exterior or interior mounted water heater? If interior in your garage you’re probably ok to give it a shot when the house warms up. Exterior i would hairdryer the exposed water lines for a bit before I tried it. 

Exterior.

Thanks. I’ll try the hair dryer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TwiceHorn 32087]

7 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Our tankless was mounted in the attic and froze up and burst the small holding tank and some copper internal lines.  The plumber wants to sell me a new one @$1300 installed.  Says that the tankless are more plug/play units and can't really be internally repaired...does anyone know how true that is?

Tank water heaters are virtually irreparable now.  The pilot, thermocouple and gas control are now usually one "gas control unit."  It's more reliable than the old system, generally, but costs ~$600 to replace if it fails out of warranty.  And a new 50-gal water heater is about $800.

If your tankless is very old at all, it is probably full of hard water deposits, so probably might as well replace the whole gotdam thing.

[4th&Five 42011]

35 minutes ago, Bob Lives! said:

The eternal truth remains true. Chili’s on 45th St. is still open


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Olive Garden on Lamar was closed. End times are near. 
 

We drove from Ben white to 6th on Lamar around 11 and the only restaurants open were a taco trailer and P. Terry’s on BS. Burger tasted excellent. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by 4th&Five

[Horn of Gabriel 1886]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Tank water heaters are virtually irreparable now.  The pilot, thermocouple and gas control are now usually one "gas control unit."  It's more reliable than the old system, generally, but costs ~$600 to replace if it fails out of warranty.  And a new 50-gal water heater is about $800.

If your tankless is very old at all, it is probably full of hard water deposits, so probably might as well replace the whole gotdam thing.

Thanks - pretty sure ours is original to the house (2004).  It's been a good solid unit, a Renai tankless but I can probably upgrade now anyway.

[Pimphand 6373]

14 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Well hopefully we’re next up. 

Just cycled up! Hope it lasts this time!

[TwiceHorn 32087]

59 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Welp, I did what I was dreading and "dug out" my water shutfoff valve.

My irrigation valve was turned 90 degrees toward the bottom of the hole and I think was actually touching some dirt, and, as mentioned, broke off in my hand.  Turned that way, it was pretty hard to get a wrench or channel lock on it.

This one should be easier to turn, including with a wrench or pliers, but it just screams "I'm going to break when you touch me," doesn't it?

Furk.  Hope I don't need it.

Can't believe I missed this opportunity, so I'm coming back for it.

MY VALVE!/Reilly

[TwiceHorn 32087]

2 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Thanks - pretty sure ours is original to the house (2004).  It's been a good solid unit, a Renai tankless but I can probably upgrade now anyway.

They may be less susceptible to hard water (assuming you're in Austin or Dallas), but I suspect you would have been due for a new one before too long for that reason alone.

I had GCUs fail on 8 year old tank heaters and just replaced the whole thing, which is why I know.  But I think tanks are worse on hard water deposits.

Edited February 18, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[LABEVO 928]

36 minutes ago, Bob Lives! said:

The eternal truth remains true. Chili’s on 45th St. is still open


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

that chili's and cockroaches 

[RPM 26656]

12 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Our tankless was mounted in the attic and froze up and burst the small holding tank and some copper internal lines.  The plumber wants to sell me a new one @$1300 installed.  Says that the tankless are more plug/play units and can't really be internally repaired...does anyone know how true that is?

He's not lying about them not really being repairable. You could, but you'd have to order oem parts, have a really talented guy take it apart and put it back together then hope it works. Or you can order a new one.

[Biff Tannen 46177]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

They may be less susceptible to hard water (assuming you're in Austin or Dallas), but I suspect you would have been due for a new one before too long for that reason alone.

Yeah I was worried about mine from 2010 when we lost power for about 15 hours or so, but it is doing fine as of now. I’ve literally only even looked at it like twice in 11 years and have done zero maintenance. Probably should look into that after this. 

[BrazilHorn 6852]

I will put a plug in for Counter Cafe off of 29th Street. They've been open.

Texas French Bread opened today for coffee and limited baked goods

Looked like Roppolos on the drag was open as well

I didn't go by but Lucky Lab off the drag/26th is supposed to be open as well for coffee/pastries

[SimonBolivar 11065]

1 hour ago, SimonBolivar said:

My branch apparently decided to run our water through the roof. Well that burst and now I have water everywhere. Luckily it didn't quite make it up to the lowest safety deposit box.

 

Just skirted some serious $$$ disaster on those bottom boxes. This is after quite a bit of water has been cleared out.

[TwiceHorn 32087]

1 hour ago, TexasEd said:

Because those colder environments have better insulation for the pipes and usually have a way to drain (winterize) them so they don't have any water in them anyway.  In Virginia we had a cutoff to the outdoor bibs that we shut off in October and then opened the bibs to drain the water.  Did not turn it back on until spring.

For normal winter spells here in the Austin area you cover the pipes and no problem.  For this deep freeze and extended event I had to convert my wrapped pipes to drip after they froze hard after 2 days.  I thawed them out with a heat gun (15 minutes) and then set them to drip.  No problem in 3 days of drip.

It seems like Hollywood doesn't shut off either.  But they probably have deep frost free spigots.

I'm not sure how deep mine are, but two of em froze anyway.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

I have always hated the fact that our two traditional water heaters are in the attic here, but so far it has stayed decently warm in there-about 10 degrees below interior house temp with no power.  Guess it's just residual furnace heat, sunlight on roof and heat rising.  Never below about 40 yet.

I know the one I had in Old East Dallas in the utility closet died in the 2011 adventure and the ones I had in Lake Highlands in the garage would been surrounded by sub-32 air.

[South Austin 53232]

2 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

 

Just skirted some serious $$$ disaster on those bottom boxes. This is after quite a bit of water has been cleared out.

My bearer bonds better not be water damaged.

[Horn of Gabriel 1886]

16 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yeah I was worried about mine from 2010 when we lost power for about 15 hours or so, but it is doing fine as of now. I’ve literally only even looked at it like twice in 11 years and have done zero maintenance. Probably should look into that after this. 

I didn't think about mine at all either; and it was great so long as we had power.  When we lost power on Mon/Tues for 8 hrs it was enough to kill it.  Next go round of multi-day sub-freezing temps I'm going to isolate it, kill the gas and power to it, and drain it best I can.  Thankfully we have another tankless on the other side of the house so we still have hot water, and also thankfully we can cut off the water flow just to the tankless so I can keep water on inside the house while we deal w/ this.  Small blessings.

I've done enough home improvement stuff over my lifetime to be dangerous.  I can handle small electrical, carpentry, and other projects - I remodeled one my first houses including paint, reflooring it with hardwoods, moving some walls, carpentry, countertops, moving electrical outlets, etc.  But plumbing is one area I haven't gotten into and I'm probably smart enough now to not try, it just seems like the risk of fucking things up is high when you don't know what you don't know.  At least in electrical if you fuck up you find out immediately (I found out pretty quick once when wiring up a socket that I turned off the wrong breaker and it was live...oops), but in plumbing if you do it wrong you may have a leak behind a wall for awhile before you figure it out.

But here's a question...in electrical work, if I want to turn off a room or appliance, I can go trip a breaker and work on that section in isolation.  Why doesn't plumbing have this concept?  Shouldn't there be a manifold with cutoff valves in a central location that let you isolate different legs of water supply to different rooms, like a breaker panel?  Why isn't this a standard feature in construction?  Explain it to me like I'm 5...

Edited February 18, 2021 by Horn of Gabriel

[TwiceHorn 32087]

3 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I have always hated the fact that our two traditional water heaters are in the attic here, but so far it has stayed decently warm in there-about 10 degrees below interior house temp with no power.  Guess it's just residual furnace heat, sunlight on roof and heat rising.  Never below about 40 yet.

I know the one I had in Old East Dallas in the utility closet died in the 2011 adventure and the ones I had in Lake Highlands in the garage would been surrounded by sub-32 air.

With our last water heater install (100 gallons in attic), we got an automatic water shutoff valve for about $200 installed.  It's at the top of the first daisy-chained heater and has sensors in both drip pans.  If it detects water, it closes that valve, which not only cuts off the water supply, but slows the draining of the tanks (like your finger over a straw).

It may not be the ultimate protection, but makes me feel better.

[TwiceHorn 32087]

5 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

I didn't think about mine at all either; and it was great so long as we had power.  When we lost power on Mon/Tues for 8 hrs it was enough to kill it.  Next go round of multi-day sub-freezing temps I'm going to isolate it, kill the gas and power to it, and drain it best I can.  Thankfully we have another tankless on the other side of the house so we still have hot water, and also thankfully we can cut off the water flow just to the tankless so I can keep water on inside the house while we deal w/ this.  Small blessings.

I've done enough home improvement stuff over my lifetime to be dangerous.  I can handle small electrical, carpentry, and other projects - I remodeled one my first houses including paint, reflooring it with hardwoods, moving some walls, carpentry, countertops, moving electrical outlets, etc.  But plumbing is one area I haven't gotten into and I'm probably smart enough now to not try, it just seems like the risk of fucking things up is high when you don't know what you don't know.  At least in electrical if you fuck up you find out immediately (I found out pretty quick once when wiring up a socket that I turned off the wrong breaker and it was live...oops), but in plumbing if you do it wrong you may have a leak behind a wall for awhile before you figure it out.

But here's a question...in electrical work, if I want to turn off a room or appliance, I can go trip a breaker and work on that section in isolation.  Why doesn't plumbing have this concept?  Shouldn't there be a manifold with cutoff valves in a central location that let you isolate different legs of water supply to different rooms, like a breaker panel?  Why isn't this a standard feature in construction?  Explain it to my like I'm 5...

Some people have mentioned having such a thing right here on the board.  They usually reference PEX piping, which makes sense because it would be easier and cheaper to route that to one location/manifold than it would be to copper all that.

[RexWilson 1502]

Just heard about ice dams. Fuck all this!

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

With our last water heater install (100 gallons in attic), we got an automatic water shutoff valve for about $200 installed.  It's at the top of the first daisy-chained heater and has sensors in both drip pans.  If it detects water, it closes that valve, which not only cuts off the water supply, but slows the draining of the tanks (like your finger over a straw).

It may not be the ultimate protection, but makes me feel better.

That's not a bad idea.  Does it have bluetooth?

[FizzleFish 137]

9 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I have always hated the fact that our two traditional water heaters are in the attic here, but so far it has stayed decently warm in there-about 10 degrees below interior house temp with no power.  Guess it's just residual furnace heat, sunlight on roof and heat rising.  Never below about 40 yet.

I know the one I had in Old East Dallas in the utility closet died in the 2011 adventure and the ones I had in Lake Highlands in the garage would been surrounded by sub-32 air.

Yeah, my last house had both water heaters in the attic above the second story.  One of the valves on the side (no idea what it's called) failed.  So, you have these 2 water heaters on essentially the 3rd story with the drip pans that are required by code and you think you're ok.  Nah, this valve caused the water to shoot out sideways. Didn't realize until we had water dripping out of a light fixture in the kitchen on the first floor.  Fun times. 

[mchookem 16775]

well, the turtle finally woke up after a 4 day nap, appears to be groggy but fine.

however there's been mass death amongst the fish and the patio smells like atrocious. only about a dozen were floaters, the rest i guess are deep amongst the rocks 😕 gonna have to wait until it really thaws out to clean out the whole pond. 

poor fishies, but grateful that's all!

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Some people have mentioned having such a thing right here on the board.  They usually reference PEX piping, which makes sense because it would be easier and cheaper to route that to one location/manifold than it would be to copper all that.

Yep - PEX and new, new constructions:

[TwiceHorn 32087]

Just now, Liquor and Poker said:

That's not a bad idea.  Does it have bluetooth?

I think you can get them with stuff like that.  Ours doesn't.

In fact, for some goddamn reason, about a teaspoon of water got into the drip pan a couple of days ago and hit the sensor and made it trip.  It beeped so I went up there, assessed the situation, dried off the sensor and reset the valve.  Everyrthings been a-ok since.  AFAIK.  Knock on wood.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

Just now, FizzleFish said:

Yeah, my last house had both water heaters in the attic above the second story.  One of the valves on the side (no idea what it's called) failed.  So, you have these 2 water heaters on essentially the 3rd story with the drip pans that are required by code and you think you're ok.  Nah, this valve caused the water to shoot out sideways. Didn't realize until we had water dripping out of a light fixture in the kitchen on the first floor.  Fun times. 

Yeah the temp release valve has its own drain line, so the big issue is when they inevitable take a shit and dump out the bottom faster than the pan can drain.  Which will happen.  I just know it.

[next2naus 439]

3 hours ago, SizzleChest said:

It has to do with residential construction as well.  Just about every home above a certain latitude has a basement, which means you can get airflow, i.e. heat, to the copper lines that run in the ceiling of a basement.  Even if the basement is finished, the airflow is there.  The farther above ground you place these lines and the farther these pipes are away from radiant heated airflow sources on the interior, the more risk you assume with your pipes and outdoor spigots freezing.

this. 

 

I live in NY, it's cold here. I still have snow on the ground from storm two weeks ago and it's snowing today. probably 6" inches fresh. Do I drip? nope. Not even the outside spigots? nope. All of them (three) have their own cut offs, one is attached to the sprinkler system and has been cut off and drained for months, one is a Freeze Proof spigot and the third one will be updated to that come spring. I also have a finished and heated basement so that helps. Next week we are putting in a Natural Gas powered 22Kw whole house generator, joy of joys. 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

Just now, TwiceHorn said:

I think you can get them with stuff like that.  Ours doesn't.

In fact, for some goddamn reason, about a teaspoon of water got into the drip pan a couple of days ago and hit the sensor and made it trip.  It beeped so I went up there, assessed the situation, dried off the sensor and reset the valve.  Everyrthings been a-ok since.  AFAIK.  Knock on wood.

I had one of those for my washer in Dallas and it tripped from condensation due to the AC turning off.

Guessing the beep is pretty audible?  I just don't want to be ignorant of the shutoff and boil the tank off.  Sometime we don't use a lot of hot water on one side of the house.

[Horn of Gabriel 1886]

4 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Yep - PEX and new, new constructions:

Yeah that seems like it might be useful right about now.

[TwiceHorn 32087]

1 minute ago, Liquor and Poker said:

I had one of those for my washer in Dallas and it tripped from condensation due to the AC turning off.

Guessing the beep is pretty audible?  I just don't want to be ignorant of the shutoff and boil the tank off.  Sometime we don't use a lot of hot water on one side of the house.

Attic on two-story house, so yeah I heard it.  Doesn't scare the shit out of you, but lets you know.

[TexasEd 8266]

15 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

But here's a question...in electrical work, if I want to turn off a room or appliance, I can go trip a breaker and work on that section in isolation.  Why doesn't plumbing have this concept?  Shouldn't there be a manifold with cutoff valves in a central location that let you isolate different legs of water supply to different rooms, like a breaker panel?  Why isn't this a standard feature in construction?  Explain it to me like I'm 5...

Cost vs return.

The reason you can do that with electrical is every circuit has a run all the way back to the switch panel.  For safety in adding ceiling fans or preventing fires with a short circuit each one can be tripped or shut off independently like if you drop the hair dryer in the tub. (Of course that is on a GFCI for added protection)

To have the equivalent in a home you would have to do that twice for every faucet (hot and cold) water.  When we had copper pipes the expense was high and there was little benefit, no-one would die if you had to shut down the whole house.  It might make sense using Pex cost wise, I don't know but you could probably throw that cost into additional insulation and freeze proof outdoor bibs and get a better return.

[troph 25238]

any word on SW Austin water yet? 

[next2naus 439]

On Water Heaters....

Placement: most of y'all don't have basements but thats a great place for them. Mine is right next to my NG Boiler and it has an expansion tank. Guarantees that it won't freeze as its by the boiler. I also think tankless are more trouble than they are worth. They can't heat as fast or as much water as a tank system, they need more frequent cleaning as well. New tankless and new tank generally have a shorter lifespan due to planned obsolescence. things like this used to be meant to last 15-20 years, now it's 8-12 years. I seem to recall people used to say a roof would last 20-25 years and now it's 15-20. New light bulbs are build to crap out at a certain usage time. 

[TexasEd 8266]

11 minutes ago, FizzleFish said:

Yeah, my last house had both water heaters in the attic above the second story.  One of the valves on the side (no idea what it's called) failed.  So, you have these 2 water heaters on essentially the 3rd story with the drip pans that are required by code and you think you're ok.  Nah, this valve caused the water to shoot out sideways. Didn't realize until we had water dripping out of a light fixture in the kitchen on the first floor.  Fun times. 

We had one where the supply line above the water heater got a pinhole over Thanksgiving and we were at the in-laws 5 hours away.  Set off the fire alarm and the fire dept. came out.  We talked to them over the phone and they got in through the garage but did not see the leak.  We got home to a ton of water from a pinhole shooting 6 feet away from the heater.

[Shoxthemonkey 1995]

14 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

So I went outside today and looked up at my roof. I have a two tiered roof and the top one looks like it has an ice dam (thank you internet). It’s about 25 feet up. Wtf do I do?  Just hope it melts off?  We don’t have shit like this in texas. Normally. When it’s not the end times. 

@ROFL BOX should chime in. Up here the damage comes from freeze and thaw cycles at the actual dam, that lift and separate the shingles allowing water to capillary in between them and damage the substrate. It takes several cycles to do this. I'm guessing that once your temps get back above freezing the ice will disappear in a single episode and with it the worry of water damage.  They manufacture sno-blocks that keep ice dams from forming  and also retard avalanche situations from  roofs but I doubt that you get enough snow and ice to warrant them. I'm far from expert but I doubt that you have a lot to worry about. If you can reach them, knock them out. If you can't, oh well. Don't try to get up on your roof. Good luck.

[horn4life 3838]

11 minutes ago, mchookem said:

well, the turtle finally woke up after a 4 day nap, appears to be groggy but fine.

however there's been mass death amongst the fish and the patio smells like atrocious. only about a dozen were floaters, the rest i guess are deep amongst the rocks 😕 gonna have to wait until it really thaws out to clean out the whole pond. 

poor fishies, but grateful that's all!

I have one large Koi that is under the ice with one small hole where I have a hose dripping... I am assuming it's toast.  But has not floated up to the one opening in the ice, so I guess there is some small hope...

[ZB'Tejas 597]

Exterior.

Thanks. I’ll try the hair dryer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welp. Hair dryer got the pipes into the Rinnai unit unfroze and once did the it tried to start up but then starting pouring water from the back of the unit.

Cut off the pipes for now as I guess I’m going to need a new unit. Dammit. And now I guess I need to worry about those pipes refreezing now that they have water and it’s shut off. Ugh


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TexasEd 8266]

14 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

So I went outside today and looked up at my roof. I have a two tiered roof and the top one looks like it has an ice dam (thank you internet). It’s about 25 feet up. Wtf do I do?  Just hope it melts off?  We don’t have shit like this in texas. Normally. When it’s not the end times. 

I knocked off the low ones I could reach yesterday but even my extension pole cant reach some on the second story.  The angles are wrong.

 

[TwiceHorn 32087]

8 minutes ago, next2naus said:

On Water Heaters....

Placement: most of y'all don't have basements but thats a great place for them. Mine is right next to my NG Boiler and it has an expansion tank. Guarantees that it won't freeze as its by the boiler. I also think tankless are more trouble than they are worth. They can't heat as fast or as much water as a tank system, they need more frequent cleaning as well. New tankless and new tank generally have a shorter lifespan due to planned obsolescence. things like this used to be meant to last 15-20 years, now it's 8-12 years. I seem to recall people used to say a roof would last 20-25 years and now it's 15-20. New light bulbs are build to crap out at a certain usage time. 

Is your house steam heated (NG boiler?)?

Edited February 18, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[RPM 26656]

1 minute ago, next2naus said:

They can't heat as fast or as much water as a tank system