In my basement renovations I make an access panel door floor to ceiling. When it starts getting cold I tell the customer to just open the door to keep the pipes from freezing as long as the basement is heated. It also makes getting to all the shut offs really easy.
Sissy Mittens...... what happened? I shared the sissy mittens video with my buddy who wears gloves for everything and laughed at him. What am I supposed to do now??? SISSY MITTENS
I'd throw in a shutoff, because why not. Pipe insulation and foam board starting a fair bit below grade, then teach the folks to open the access panels.
Do you do product reviews? I have a product, ReSecure Latch that solves the common problem with loose door latches or deadbolts and would be willing to send one. Thank you.
I recognize that day. The day when you know you've reached the point where man-handling everything just isn't going to work for you anymore. Rent that lift Handyman. Rent that lift; you've earned it.
Nice thing about PEX is it is a lot more resistant to bursting than copper or whatnot if there is a freeze. I don’t have much experience with the PEX B and crimp rings, but I’ve used PEX A with cold expansion joints quite a bit. PEX A has “memory” and will go back to original shape if expanded or kinked.
You could put some heat trace cable on your pex water line and plug it in, in the fall when you shut off the sprinkler system. You should have a 120V outlet right there for the sprinkler timer.
12:58 🤣💕👍 PS- I go through those shitty 3 pack of multi colored gloves they sell at home depot pretty quick 😂 I usually use for shovel type work where if I don't my sweaty hands blister.
I'm in Upstate NY. Water lines here are buried at least 42 inches deep and enter inside the foundation walls. Wise plumbers don't put lines inside outside walls no matter how they are insulated. No water lines in attics. Things are different around the USA.
I put a deck on my house, and extended the spigot to the end of the deck with copper pipe, I patched that copper pipe 6-8 times in 12 years. I changed the copper to pex pipe, this was 8 years ago. Never had to patch the pex, seems to resist freeze damage!😎😁
Any time I have a tricky insulation scenario, especially like here with potential air infiltration, I go with canned spray foam. You can build up a pretty good mound with a few cans, and cans are about $3.75 or cheaper in bulk. Highest R value of any insulation, and fills gaps and weird areas easily, albeit a bit messy. It does kind of screw the next guy to be working there, but a pipe burst behind a finished wall is a full gut out anyway. Might as well chop away some spray foam if 1/2 the wall needs to come out.
Get the Rigid RP115 and Veiga purflow jaws for it. Will make your pex experience much more enjoyable, no rings to hold and line up no clunky crimper. Maybe rigid will send you one to review
Oh man you’re so right on that pipe insulation. We had a basement remodel and the guy doing the insulation for the bathroom insulated the vanity and toilet pipes to the outside, and it froze first time it got below freezing. So disappointing; wish I would’ve caught that.
Old oil line from a long removed tank outside? Would explain why there is no corrosion inside. As far as the pipes, you have an electrical outlet available. Use some heat tape.
When you compress fiber glass batt insulation, the R-value per inch goes up, but the overall R-value goes down because you have less inches or thickness of insulation. Add more insulation.
You could wrap that pipe with heat tape inside the house or change the exterior valve to a frost free valve if it is a spigot and or add a blow out valve on the exterior and blow out the sprinkler lines every fall.
