Thread: Slow drip to prevent freezing...

If that spigot froze, make sure and check the piping behind the shutoff knob. A standard hose hookup actually shuts the water off about 8-16 inches in from the piece on outside of house. The pipe just behind the control knob will split, only way to know is, very careful inspection or it will flood house when turned on.

Don’t see many ( meaning zero) quarter valves on external faucets up here but being from northern ILL you know that.

Dang you need to move South!

Exactly, that is why I mentioned the freeze proof style spigot. That being said, if the spigot is not installed correctly to allow it to drain after being shutoff, or someone leaves a hose connected, or it leaks a little it will freeze and split the pipe inside the wall or in the basement, crawl space or under trailer and flood.

Originally Posted by Bassing_53

If that spigot froze, make sure and check the piping behind the shutoff knob. A standard hose hookup actually shuts the water off about 8-16 inches in from the piece on outside of house. The pipe just behind the control knob will split, only way to know is, very careful inspection or it will flood house when turned on.

These valves here in Florida are completely outside. They are not those frost free ones that shut off inside, although based on the current weather, they should be, then I would not have to drip the waters.

Central Minn, when it ain't freezing I love these valves, quarter turn and they are all the way open. love it

And yep keef, I just told wifey we need to move to the keys!

At one time in my childhood we had the electric heat pump system in our house. Thank goodness we also had two wood heaters, or we’d have frozen! Not a fan
Our outside faucets, we just cover with the little styrofoam bonnets and have always gotten by. Been single digits here several nights lately, zero or below one night.


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Heat Pumps are a bill of goods sold to everyone south. There is no such thing as a Unit of Cold, only a Unit of Heat. The absence of a Unit of Heat it's Cold. So a Heat Pump relies on the work heat added to the refrigerant to warm the home. Instead of the freshly added heat into the compressed gas being discharged thru the coil outside the house it is reversed to the Evaporator coil inside to be discharged there. So it is sold to us that when the refrigerant returns to the Condensing unit it is supposed to absorb units of Heat from the outside air as the Condenser Fan is running but guess what the Condenser units freeze up because there is little units of ambient heat out side to absorb thru the condenser coil. So Electric Heating Elements are added to boost the systems ability to heat the home. This also comes at the price of reduced life of the complete Condensing skid due to running year around. Well this Engineer plays the game differently. I only install straight cool systems in my home and shop. Heating with lower efficiency Heat Strips but not running my Condenser Skid extends my Condenser Skid life over double. I have posted elsewhere on the Forum doing the PM to the skid to extend it's life replacing the Hard Start kits, contactors, and fan motors before a failure stressing the Compressor windings. My way works, I get well over 20 years of service life out of the Compressor, Condenser coil, and cabinet. Amortize that over the life of the equipment and you come out way ahead cost wise. We supplement the system with a Propane Fireplace with a Forced Fan which blows almost at 100% efficiency. The heat strips are cycling right now but it's 18-20 degrees outside but their not cycling much. Just a Rant, but it's true.

Originally Posted by J White

At one time in my childhood we had the electric heat pump system in our house. Thank goodness we also had two wood heaters, or we’d have frozen! Not a fan
Our outside faucets, we just cover with the little styrofoam bonnets and have always gotten by. Been single digits here several nights lately, zero or below one night.


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com

There was no such thing as a heat pump in my childhood .... we had one big Dearborn propane heater in the living room (or in a couple houses we had a fireplace) and a small propane heater in the bath room .... then lots of blankets in the bedrooms!