mellow
vakkotaur and I decided to give ourselves was freedom from freezing pipes. We only have one pair of lines that are problematical, the hot and cold water lines to the kitchen sink and dishwasher. They run along the back wall of the house, at the top of the basement. In the finished part of the basement, there's some sheetrock that covers them and makes them completely inaccessible. There's also a gas line that runs out to the garage, through a hole in the back wall right by the water lines. When it gets below zero degrees F, enough cold air comes in that the pipes freeze.We had enough of dealing with that. So far, they hadn't burst, but we didn't want to take the chance that they would at some point. Today, a plumber came out and ran new lines, away from the back wall, of PEX (cross-linked polyethylene) tubing. He also removed the gas line to the garage, since we are not going to replace the heater out there (it's got a cracked heat exchanger). While he was here, he also fixed what we thought was a bad faucet in the shower. Whee.
This winter, we won't have to worry about any pipes freezing. It's going to be nice.
