Cold Weather Blues and Seeing Red

I think I was born too far north. I don’t care for the winter. I don’t hate it, but I’d rather it be a little warmer. I think if I lived in the deep south I’d miss the changing seasons – heck, I’d even miss snow. But give me two snowfalls a year and I’ve had my fill.

Although I like the warmer climates personally, I also have some business related gripes with the winter. First off, people don’t like to move when it’s cold. Something about carrying all their possessions through the snow doesn’t sit well for a lot of folks.

We recently began the screening process on someone looking to move only to find they were currently being evicted. Well that ended that prospect. Somehow they failed to mention that detail on their application (and one question specifically asks about it). People, it’s public record – we will find out! Now that’s not to say everyone looking to move in the winter is being evicted. Don’t think you can’t fill a vacancy in this season, but I can say less people are moving. People have all sorts of good and not so good reasons, so be careful!

But actually today’s topic is about a funny thing that happens to water when it reaches 32F – it freezes. If you were a good student back in science class you may remember that most things contract as they cool. As with so many rules, there’s an occasional exception – and water is it. It expands when it freezes. That means all sort of potential headaches.

I dropped in on a property that’s being renovated the other day to witness this unfortunate fact. I hear water running – never good in an empty property. In the basement I find the water main valve was left on by a contractor. Oh no – ooooohhhhh nooooooo! Son of a monkey’s banana!

Pretty much whatever you can imagine at this point, it was worse. With the water on to the house, it froze so of course the water meter and regulator had exploded. Then there was the water running out all over the place because it was thawing that morning. Then comes the real whammy – the heating system.

The heat system is hot water – boiler and radiators. Actually this system had been off and winterized – which should make everything okay, right? Well not exactly. Boilers have fill valves that automatically fill the system to make up for any losses. This valve was off, but apparently someone had turned it by accident and didn’t get it quite shut off. This was no problem when the contractor was turning the water to an open hose on and off at the main. But somewhere along the line they installed a valve at the hose so they could leave the main on. Suddenly the fill valve was seeing full pressure and the heating system began to fill. It was probably filling super slow, but when they left the water on overnight (or longer), there was plenty of time for the system to fill.

So if you know anything about cast iron, what old radiators and pipe elbows are made from, it’s not too “stretchy” of a material. Freezing water destroyed all 9 radiators and nearly all pipe fitting throughout the basement. Then of course the water in the radiators leaked out all over the floors, which fortunately weren’t finished surfaces yet.

Fudge fudge fudge.

So I have to go and cry in a minute. But before I do, let’s talk about what to do next. Well first off, we’re not fixing this system. I hate hot water heat. It’s lovely to live with (I had it in my first house), but it’s a complicated and costly system. This house will now be getting a forced air system. Forced air is wildly less complicated and it can never freeze. Of course this will mean running all new ductwork through the whole house.

Then there’s the blame game. Should we put a hit out on this contractor? Well . . . it did cross my mind. But there’s blame to go around. The water should not have been left on. The fill valve should not have been touched. But on our end we made mistakes too. The valve at the bottom of the boiler (system drain valve) should have been left open just in case the system were somehow to be filled – we never even thought to check it (hint: learn from our error). A good second step would have been to label the fill value with a “make sure this stays off” sign or even to just cut the fill pipe off for the time being.

Another expensive lesson. Things just got more expensive at this job. But time to move forward.