Whenever Chicago gets hit with an Arctic freeze, it is the worst time in the world for anything to break down. Especially a furnace, hot water heater, locks to the door, or pipes bringing in the water. An Arctic freeze will quickly show you how poorly insulated your house is as that cold weather seeps through the doorway, and other cracks and crevices. It will make one long doing the weather stripping that was previously ignored and not taken care of during the warmer weather.

I remember the Arctic freeze that happened around Christmas 2022. I was out of town and had completely forgotten to allow the water to drip. By the time I got back, the temperature had warmed up, but when I turned on the faucets upstairs, they sputtered and brown water came out, along with a lot of sediment. That was a sure sign the water pipes had frozen.

My water pipes froze again during last week’s Arctic blast. Thankfully I had a case of bottled water, which saved me from not having any water. I finally narrowed the problem area down to the northwest corner of the basement. On the exterior of my house, that area doesn’t have any bushes or anything else to block cold or break the wind. I tried putting a heat gun and a halogen lamp in the area where I figured the problem was occurring. 

However, because a prior owner of my home had encased the water pipes in cement, that strategy didn’t work. Putting pipes in cement is great protection from being hit with a nail but horrible when it comes to trying to find out where the pipe is frozen at. Having the pipes run behind the wall made it difficult as well. 

In trying to find and defrost the frozen pipe, I had both the furnace and a heater in the basement going. My basement was starting to feel like a tropic zone, so it was weird hours later that wherever the frozen pipe was, it hadn’t warmed up the area enough to defrost it. I finally solved the problem by running a heating cable into the area behind the wall. The extreme warmth worked! Twenty minutes later, the wonderful gurgling sound of water coming through put a smile on my face. 

One of the things I now have to debate is how much money it is going to cost me to replace the galvanized pipes currently in place with copper pipes. I’m pretty sure freezing has not been good for them. My water pressure is excellent, so it does not appear that those pipes are clogged. 

And ever since I moved into the house 34 years ago, I always let the water run for about two minutes after it has been standing all night. If there’s any lead leaching into the water, it would be more concentrated in water that has been standing than water that is moving. 

I think I’ll spend the next six weeks plotting all my projects for the upcoming spring and summer. My list, as usual, will be things I can do, and things I’m going to have to pay the professional to do. I know I definitely need to have some additional plumbing work done in addition to those incoming water pipes, so that project may be prioritized up. 

Home ownership is always an adventure!