Trust me I didn't mean or want to start a debate. Despite that many people say running water in pipes doesn't freeze I still expect there are a lot of variables to making that an absolute fact. How fast the water is running which brings into play the size of the pipe and the volume of the water moving as well as how cold the temps are and how long it's been cold. There are so many articles on the web saying to let your faucet drip to prevent the pipes from freezing I couldn't find any scientific studies/experiments. It seems reasonable to me to expect that a faucet dripping wouldn't allow the water in the pipe to be moving fast enough to prevent at least some freezing. I'd expect the water would start freezing along the walls of the pipe and begin restricting the pipe. Of course as it does that the hole the water flows through would get smaller and smaller and thus the water move faster through it and perhaps it would never freeze completely shut which doesn't actually prove the water didn't' freeze just that it wasn't sufficient to bust the pipe--which is what preventing freezing in the pipes is all about anyway. Also on my mind is that as the water is being pumped from deep in the ground (well or a deep city water main) it's not freezing cold and it's passage through the pipe serves to warm the pipe thus lessening the start of icing too.
The fountain isn't really a good example of pipes freezing in a house as I expect a fairly large volume of water is running through a pretty small pipe to spurt out of the fountain--akin to a garden hose running wide open which is too much movement to freeze. What's frozen is the water running down the side of the fountain after it's spurted out the top.
Again, I don't doubt that letting a faucet drip/run will prevent pipes from bursting but unless the movement in the pipes is substantial I would expect to see some freezing inside if the weather is cold enough, long enough. And I personally wouldn't rule out complete freeze up if the water wasn't running at a good little trickle. I did find one article on the web that seems to agree with my theory though the New Orleans paper is hardly scientific. "According to the University of Illinois, the alert threshold in the south for pipe freezing is 20 degrees Farenheit. At that temperature, even running water can freeze." See link.
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Today's Featured Article - Earthmaster Project Progress Just a little update on my Earthmaster......it's back from the dead! I pulled the head, and soaked the stuck valves with mystery oil overnight, re-installed the head, and bingo, the compression returned. But alas, my carb foiled me again, it would fire a second then flood out. After numerous dead ends for a replacement carb, I went to work fixing mine.I soldered new floats on the float arm, they came from an old motorcycle carb, replaced the packing on the throttle shaft with o-rings, cut new ga
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