Translate

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Discover Magazine Digital Archive Online

The Discover magazine kindly provides a digital archive of all their past issues:
http://discovermagazine.com/issues

Other magazines also offer online archives access.
Simply search using ‘magazine issues archive’.

Freezing & Bursting Water Pipes

Why Pipes Burst-
“Surprisingly, ice forming in a pipe does not typically cause a break where the ice blockage occurs. It’s not the radial expansion of ice against the wall of the pipe that causes the break. Rather, following a complete ice blockage in a pipe, continued freezing and expansion inside the pipe causes water pressure to increase downstream -- between the ice blockage and a closed faucet at the end. It’s this increase in water pressure that leads to pipe failure. Usually the pipe bursts where little or no ice has formed. Upstream from the ice blockage the water can always retreat back towards its source, so there is no pressure build-up to cause a break. Water has to freeze for ice blockages to occur. Pipes that are adequately protected along their entire length by placement within the building’s insulation, insulation on the pipe itself, or heating, are safe.”

“When should homeowners be alert to the danger of freezing pipes? That depends, but in southern states and other areas where freezing weather is the exception rather than the rule (and where houses often do not provide adequate built-in pro- tection), the “temperature alert threshold” is 20 degrees F.”....

http://disastersafety.org/wp-content/uploads/Freezing-Bursting-Pipes_IBHS.pdf

https://www.thebalance.com/stop-freezing-pipes-2124982