Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss About to get cold in East Texas

Sorry. I frequently try humor in dark times to lighten the mood.

Sometimes it is just too darn dark to make jokes. Especially when people are dying in car wrecks.

My bad.

That was my shot at humor. Little to no snow around here. It's colder than normal, but that's about it. We've got neighbors on the road, and their not having any problems.

11 here but was colder earlier. One of you guys up North need to come and get your weather back where it belongs

Dave, I want it back, it would warm things up a lot. We were -14.2°F on the thermometer this morning right before sunup, sitting at -8°F now. The only savings grace is that the wind died down to around 5 mph, or we'd all be froze. I have to get my warm clothes on and go check on the fish. I received a notice from the utility company that the power went out an hour ago and just came back on. If the plumbing shoving well water to the fish broke or froze, then they are all dead - I ain't going to mess with liquid water in these temps.

The snow drifts are packed so hard that the dogs can run across the tops of them and not break through the surface.

8 on my thermometer this morning with a light dusting of snow

One of the most enjoyable threads currently running. Esshup, I'll let you have our weather just so long as we don't have to trade the current conditions and I get your summer weather as boot.

We were 0 this morning with a windchill of - 15. We got about an inch of snow yesterday.

In for a penny, in for a pound. LOL We did make it above 0 today, but we have a windchill warning through Wednesday, saying it will be between -25 to -35 degrees F.

We have the same wind chill warning here, supposed to get to 35 below. We finally did get some snow with it at least. Only about 6 inches, but we'll take it!

Ok, silly question for those of you that get cold weather like this most every year. How do you prep your house for negative temps? Is it the construction, or is it something y'all need to do yourselves?

I don't really do anything to the house. Here you do need to detach the hose from the house and need to winterize the sprinklers, which is basically just draining them.

The temps we had last year were miserable. Depending on where your water pipes were (had a friend who had some pipes directly above his garage) they could freeze. We're talking 40 below zero though. Thankfully that's rare.

It's the construction. Insulation, double or triple pane windows etc. If you build, use 2x6's for wall studs. Put a lot of blown in insulation in the attic, make sure the attic is vented to let out warm moist air so it doesn't condense and drip.

If your attic doesn't have a lot of insulation, blow more in being careful not to plug the vents.

Remove outside hoses, drain hose bibs and leave faucets open. I can shut them off from inside the house and drain them so they don't freeze. I prefer to do that than to get the frostproof hose bibs, those don't have a big enough opening in them for the water to flow (In my opinion).

If you can remove the screens from the windows and swap out to storm windows that would be best. I am going to see if I can get storm windows built for at least 6 windows on the west side of the house for next year, that side takes the brunt of the wind blown snow and cold weather. 1/2 mile of open field that way, and the house is on a bit of a rise so it gets ALL the wind.

If your bladder tank isn't inside the house, insulate the building that it is in, and I put a ceramic heater in there with a t-stat that turns on at 32°F and off at 36°F.

The pipes and footings for the foundation are supposed to be below the frost line, which building codes say for Indiana averages 36" but up here in the North it can get down to 60" deep. They want water/sewer lines at 40" below grade.

If new construction or re-siding the house, wrap it with Tyvek house wrap and seal any seams.

Bladder tank?

A bladder tank is another name for a pressure tank for a well. The water in the bladder tank never contacts the steel in the tank - it's in a big thick "balloon" inside the tank.

I lived in central Alabama for ten yrs, never got a lot of cold snaps, but did have a few ponds get a crust of ice on them for a day or two, never enough to step on, and we went thru way more issues, frozen pipes and power outages, also more ice events, which resulted in power outages for a week at a time, crazy!
Like Essup said, the cold is not a big issue if you are prepared for it, they call our worst case scenario , frost depth to be 30", but I have never seen it anywhere close to that, we run water lines at 30" depth minimum and no plumbing in your outside walls or attic, ever. other then that, its business as usual.

I have had way less fuel gelling or engine cranking issues here at negative degrees then I had in Al at 20 degrees, never have figured that one out. spent way more time without power there in a couple yrs then I have here in 30 yrs.
That's not saying I enjoy the shit, used to somewhat when I was younger, but less and less and way less every yr now that I am older.

I guess all of us can't live on the beach in Florida, but sometimes I think it would be nice, Id love to do the snowbird thing and just fly south for the winter, my excavating thing pretty much comes to a standstill during the winter months. and as much as my wife would love that idea, she wont get away from the kids and grandkids that long,,,, Oh well,, I guess I'll go out and fill the bird feeders and throw some shelled corn out for the wild turkeys,,, at least I'll eat good.

Our main river through the center of the city is now frozen solid across the surface. It usually does NOT do that because it is moving water.

It looks thick enough for ice skating, but I did not personally test that prospect!

My wife does silly stuff like open the cabinets around water pipes, leave faucets dripping, etc. I keep telling her the problem would be solved if we just measured winter temperatures in Fahrenheit, then use Celsius during the summer. Great savings on electricity! But does she listen???