Using sound judgment to be more self-reliant.
When cold weather strikes, water damage from frozen water pipes or no running water is the last thing you need. We’ll explain how to prevent frozen pipes when abruptly cold weather hits, and list construction or remodeling options that reduce your risk in the future. If your pipes are already frozen, please see 3 Ways to Safely Thaw Out Frozen Pipes.
When pipes freeze, it instantly becomes a problem. Repairs can be very expensive if you hire a professional plumber. Also, if your pipes are frozen because of an atypical weather event (extreme cold of a polar vortex), it’s likely a lot of other people will be having similar problems. It could be days before the plumber can get to you. In this post, we’ll cover three options for thawing frozen pipes safely, plus tips for frozen drain pipes, emergency repairs and avoiding frozen pipes.
The “Building an Eco Home” series is a set of articles that were originally published in The Healthy Independent while we were in the process of building our current home. I have made only minor edits to include links and format for the online publishing. I will be discussing green building and remodeling in more detail in upcoming posts, so if you want to know more about a topic, please make a request.
For those of you who are new to our “eco-home”, let me provide a brief overview of progress to date. Our goal at the start of this project was to build a home that conserved energy and resources, was accessible for family and friends with physical limitations, and had enough acreage that we could fully pursue our interests in organic gardening, orcharding, heirloom plants and livestock and other outdoor pursuits.
Finding the right property in our budget was a challenge, but we did it. (Read more about that in part 2.) House placement and access presented some more challenges, but we finally broke ground in October 2004. Just about everything that could happen to slow things down, did, but we are finally nearing completion. Hopefully by the end of May or early June we will be moving into our new home.
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