Jadnashua
Retired Defense Industry Engineer xxx
I own a townhouse in a condo. The unit next to me has been vacant for awhile (bank forclosure). The bank just had the place 'winterized' by shutting off the water, draining the pipes, and putting antifreeze in the traps, and shutting off power and heat. This is all well and good, but the unit is in the middle of a string of units. While their water may be off, the supply runs THROUGH the unit, in the ceiling of the basement (which is closed in and insulated) to units down the row (we don't have individual water meters, so there was no reason to run the supply in from outside for each unit). Last winter, a unit on the end had it's pipes freeze, split, and create a bunch of problems, but we were able to get in (it also was forclosed), and put a cap on the pipe near where it came in from the unit next door. Then we insulated it against the firewall between the units to try to trap some heat from the occupied unit. It made it through the rest of the winter without further problems. There is a common firewall (double-stud, insulated sound and fire wall) between each unit and right now, the units on either side of this forclosed unit are occupied and would be heated over the winter.
During the day, there'd be sporatic water use, and even on a really cold day, my feeling is it is unlikely the pipe in this unit might freeze. I'm somewhat worried that at the end of a long, cold night in the middle of winter, though, it could, since there'd be no flow.
How likely is this to happen? WHen it happened earlier this year on that end unit, it had been really cold for about 5-days, where it rarely got out of the single digits, even during the warmest part of the day. Trying to explain this to the bank, and forcing them to now pay to provide some minimum heat may be hard. Suggestions?
During the day, there'd be sporatic water use, and even on a really cold day, my feeling is it is unlikely the pipe in this unit might freeze. I'm somewhat worried that at the end of a long, cold night in the middle of winter, though, it could, since there'd be no flow.
How likely is this to happen? WHen it happened earlier this year on that end unit, it had been really cold for about 5-days, where it rarely got out of the single digits, even during the warmest part of the day. Trying to explain this to the bank, and forcing them to now pay to provide some minimum heat may be hard. Suggestions?