. Temps wll be plummeting tomorrow afternoon with lows each night this weekend below zero, and high winds will make it even colder. I don't plan to go anywhere, but I did run out today to spend about $75 at Lowe's on water pipe insulation in the basement. Not the foam kind, but the better quality stuff; I don't know what it's made of. I also got a large roll of insulation tape for hard to get to spots.
When I got my new heat pump hot water heater in January I guess 2 years ago now, we agreed he would move the location of the heater, necessitating new copper pipe. Insulating the pipe (there are many spots even with the older pipe with no insulation) should have been top of mind for me sooner than this, but it just wasn't. The last few years we've enjoyed relatively mild winters. Some of those pipes are quite close, like inches, to the outer wall, so I don't want to take any chances. I keep reading posts from people on my town's Facebook page who have frozen pipes and are freaking out.
I will do it in the morning, prioritizing the pipes closest to the back wall. They mostly run parallel to the back wall but the water comes in from the front wall from the utility provider. There's still a lot of snow on the back patio, and I imagine that must act like an insulator in and of itself, but still.... I measured the circumference of various different pipes (to determine diameter) and found 3 different sizes! The guy at the store said my largest pipe measurement must be wrong because most pipe diameters aren't that big. So I took home 18 feet each of the 2 smaller sizes and hope they are enough. It may not be. I think I'll put a thermometer down there, too, just to monitor how cold it gets in that spot. I really don't know.
Otherwise, I made a big pot of lentil soup a few days ago as well as some date brownies, and I just did a big grocery spend at BJs today (spend $150 and get $15 back), so I'm good with food here for a while.
I won't say the driveway is completely shoveled, but I did finally shovel enough so I can turn the car around at the top of the driveway so I don't have to back down it; I also shoveled a path to my oil fill-up tank, just in case. It will make it easier to shovel the 1-3" we're expecting tomorrow.
I checked my oil level and there's still a little more than a half tank in there so I should be able to get into early March with that. I may ratchet up the indoor temp all weekend given the very low outdoor temps, which I don't really like to do becus I honestly sleep better at night with cooler temps, but you do what you gotta do. The other thing (maybe a tip for those not used to this kind of weather) is keeping all the cabinet doors open on your sinks to expose the pipes to the warmer air, along with allowing a very slow drip from each faucet. Yeah, I've been doing all these things for the past week or so. I will put a large plastic container to catch the drips in the sinks and will use it to refill my bird bath or water houseplants, so nothing goes to waste.
February 8th, 2026 at 09:39 am 1770543597