You never really appreciate just how little water can make a big pile of snow until you start boiling snow for water.

Once my duty station in Mt Rainier was shut down for the season, I moved to a non operating church camp just outside of the park boundary until the rest of the roads in my patrol area closed up for the season. It was free rent for me and the other ranger that lived there, and the church received some free security by having us and our marked patrol cars on premises. The camp recently was purchased by another church group, and they were in the process of renovating the camp which hadn't been well maintained for the past 5 or so years. Everything had to be brought up to code, including the water main that was a wooden pipe. I moved in early October, water was shut off in mid October, and the new main wasn't running until 4 or so days before I moved out in early December. Every few days we had to fill our 5 gallon water jugs at a nearby spring, and unfortunately there wasn't a good water source close enough that it was convenient to keep water that could be used for flushing the toilet. Although the potable water could be used in an emergency. At one point in November, the nearby Forest Service contact station that we were using as a toilet and shower facility lost its pump. Fun times.

When I was living in on-campus housing in Montana, I was always horribly paranoid that our pipes would freeze when we were gone for Christmas, and always left a tap running while we were gone. Being a second story apartment, I was pretty sure the pipes were well insulated enough. But I couldn't get the thought of flooding out our downstairs neighbors out of my mind.

When my folks were still working seasonally for the Forest Service in northern Idaho back in the 70's, their pipes started freezing in an early cold snap. Rather than crawling around underneath the cabin every few days with a propane torch, they packed up the truck and spent the rest of the winter touring around the southwest.

What exactly counts as a toilet/flushing emergency?

Did you remember to drain the pipes after turning off the interior shutoff?

I hear you. Once, in days gone by, I lived in a crappy rental home, sans basement but it had a crawl space where all of the plumbing ran. Problem was that my land lord did not insulate this area. One wintry morning I remember waking up to the sound of lapping water, dreamily thinking I had fallen asleep on a tropical beach. Alas, no, it was cold as freaking hell and the pipes had burst, flooding the crawl space to the brim with water. It took that slum lord two weeks to get a plumber out, so I know what it's like to have no running water. It sucks

Why I Hate Red Squirrels by Alien13z:

I grew up in a house with well water in upstate New York. We used to wrap electrical heating tape around the exposed portions of the intake pipe to keep it from freezing. One morning we didn't have water despite the tape. I went down to the cellar. A red squirrel had chewed through the electrical heating tape and shorted it out. We knew it was a red squirrel because it was still stuck to the pipe where it had been electrocuted.

Thus began the great red squirrel purge of 1983.

You know, it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for my grandpa. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy to death, and I've stayed to help take care of him, but we got the stuff we needed to fix the pipes today, and he doesn't want to go into the basement to fix it, cause it's dark and snowy. I can't do it solo, but it's just the PVC fitting to the pressure tank, it's really not hard. Bah.

I did get some of that electric heater tape for the pipes, by the way. And the PVC pipes are like, 24+ years old, so they did need to be replaced... I just wouldn't have chosen to do it in 10 degree weather.

Though a break in the weather is always appreciated.

This thread is a great example of why I live in the bay area. Pipes... freezing? Weird.

Is this where I call you a sally?

My eyelashes froze together on the way to work this morning. I always think that's kind of neat.

Call me whatever you like, I'm not the one living in a place where you have to make sure your plumbing is warm.

Christ, this is why I never want to leave the southwest. Freezing pipes?! Snow?! I prefer to spend my winter days like I did last weekend: golfing on a beautiful 68 degree day.

This thread mus have cursed me . Had a pipe break at my rental property on Saturday. About 8 inches of water in the basement from a break that was about an inch long and a few millimeters wide. Hooray for Minnesota. I'm currently having a restoration company work on everything, but it is looking like I'm getting a brand new basement out of the deal.

For some of the irritating things about having a well system (No power = no water, among other things) Being able to kill the water with a breaker flip is beautiful.

I miss going to the beach on Christmas though. (I lived in Florida until I was 10)

Though, nebraska has a lock on worst weather. -5 winters AND 110 summers. It rarely got over 90 where I was living in florida, and you had a nice sea breeze!

My pipe is plenty warm, honey.

Betty Rubble was hot. That is all.

Add lake effect precipitation to that, and you've got the Midwest. I'm glad I'm not on the east side of the lake, at least.