No hot water

[BigN8]

Any plumbers on here???? So here in the TX arctic I woke up this morning to no hot water. I have full running cold water pressure, but no hot water pressure, just a slight trickle. Conditions are as follows:

It's colder than a well diggers ass.
Hot water heater is gas and in the garage
Lines are pex and go into the wall and into a small attic above the garage
some of the pipe insulation had come off the red and the blue pex piping

I put the insulation back on and I have a space heater going in the attic

Why do I have no hot water pressure? Is it the cold supply into the tank or the hot supply coming out?

 

[Babin Farms]

Leave the hot water run to see if you have a partially frozen line. I deal with this on our cattle waterer every winter

 

[marcham]

Are any of the pipes in a non insulated portion of the house or attic?

Pipe insulation won't help if they are in a non conditionned space.

 

[anmut]

Your line is frozen. Run your hot water immediately to unfreeze, keep it on while it's cold.

 

[RightStuff]

Other things to look at...but sounds like a froze line somewhere since I doubt you have the right insulation/heat to keep all lines from freezing.

Is there a pressure release valve on the hot water tank? Usually part way up on the side, sometimes has a hose attached... If you slightly open that, is there decent water pressure coming from that?
There is a drain valve at the bottom of the tank, assume there is hot water coming from that if you put some in a bucket?

If those are good, then likely a froze line somewhere from tank to faucet.

 

[marcham]

Averages:







40 deg below normal..... willing to bet that water pipes are not always kept in the conditioned space and that the building code wasn't designed for that kind of weather extreme.

Get some gentle heat on the exposed pipes. Lookout of leaking fittings once it thaws.

 

[Neutron]

My Rinnai Tankless water heater is mounted on the outside of my house through my master bath. While it uses an internal automatic deicer, the supply line that goes through the wall from my crawl space basement (which is heat and air conditioned) so my hot water would freeze if it got freezing for long periods. After pulling the cover off the Rinnai i saw the pipe coming out of the wall that 90d up into the heater was totally exposed to freezing temps. I insulated that pipe and never had an issue since

 

[buckbuck]

Texas plumbing contractors are going to make alot of money this week. I am trying to help my kids get water running to their house as I write. (from 1000 miles away)

 

[zipper]

Any plumbers on here???? So here in the TX arctic I woke up this morning to no hot water. I have full running cold water pressure, but no hot water pressure, just a slight trickle. Conditions are as follows:

It's colder than a well diggers ass.
Hot water heater is gas and in the garage
Lines are pex and go into the wall and into a small attic above the garage
some of the pipe insulation had come off the red and the blue pex piping

I put the insulation back on and I have a space heater going in the attic

Why do I have no hot water pressure? Is it the cold supply into the tank or the hot supply coming out?

So, how are you doing 8 hrs later?

 

[Babin Farms]

So, how are you doing 8 hrs later?

Probably been to the hardware store to get fittings three times(hope not)

 

[BigN8]

Nothing. To make matters worse the city lost power to the pumps that supply water to the entire city. So around 10 am we lost everything. Faucets had a slow trickle from I guess the head pressure in the system from the tanks. From what I've read online and the few people I've talked to there is nothing we can do at this point. Lines are froze and they will not thaw for days most likely. The good news is our house uses PEX tubing and from what I read this stuff can handle a feeze and thaw pretty well. We'll see when the thaw happens. Once it thaws and I find leaks I'll have to isolate water to the house from the street. Good news is our power stayed on most of the day. My daughter who is 5 min away has been without power since 3am. They came over and pulled from my wood pile and have been burning the fire place all day. This is a real mess. New Winter Storm Waring in effect thru Thursday with more snow expected.

 

[thefortunes]

Nothing. To make matters worse the city lost power to the pumps that supply water to the entire city. So around 10 am we lost everything. Faucets had a slow trickle from I guess the head pressure in the system from the tanks. From what I've read online and the few people I've talked to there is nothing we can do at this point. Lines are froze and they will not thaw for days most likely. The good news is our house uses PEX tubing and from what I read this stuff can handle a feeze and thaw pretty well. We'll see when the thaw happens. Once it thaws and I find leaks I'll have to isolate water to the house from the street. Good news is our power stayed on most of the day. My daughter who is 5 min away has been without power since 3am. They came over and pulled from my wood pile and have been burning the fire place all day. This is a real mess. New Winter Storm Waring in effect thru Thursday with more snow expected.

Good luck to you and everyone affected.

 

[Brad_Ct]

Nothing. To make matters worse the city lost power to the pumps that supply water to the entire city. So around 10 am we lost everything. Faucets had a slow trickle from I guess the head pressure in the system from the tanks. From what I've read online and the few people I've talked to there is nothing we can do at this point. Lines are froze and they will not thaw for days most likely. The good news is our house uses PEX tubing and from what I read this stuff can handle a feeze and thaw pretty well. We'll see when the thaw happens. Once it thaws and I find leaks I'll have to isolate water to the house from the street. Good news is our power stayed on most of the day. My daughter who is 5 min away has been without power since 3am. They came over and pulled from my wood pile and have been burning the fire place all day. This is a real mess. New Winter Storm Waring in effect thru Thursday with more snow expected.

You will probably be ok because of the PEX but I would leave your faucets open so that the ice can expand.

 

[marcham]

Good luck, hope you make it out without damage.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Nothing. To make matters worse the city lost power to the pumps that supply water to the entire city. So around 10 am we lost everything. Faucets had a slow trickle from I guess the head pressure in the system from the tanks. From what I've read online and the few people I've talked to there is nothing we can do at this point. Lines are froze and they will not thaw for days most likely. The good news is our house uses PEX tubing and from what I read this stuff can handle a feeze and thaw pretty well. We'll see when the thaw happens. Once it thaws and I find leaks I'll have to isolate water to the house from the street. Good news is our power stayed on most of the day. My daughter who is 5 min away has been without power since 3am. They came over and pulled from my wood pile and have been burning the fire place all day. This is a real mess. New Winter Storm Waring in effect thru Thursday with more snow expected.

Do you still have gas? If so you are lucky.

This is the second time that I know of where ERCOT has lost all wind generation due to ice on the blades. The last time ERCOT had purposely left the blade heaters off, and after the investigation by NERC, ERCOT was heavily fined, like millions. I think that was in 2017.. but I’ve slept a few times since then.

Since ERCOT is overly reliant on wind energy (renewable) when they lost their wind generation the system voltage decayed causing and under frequency load shedding event, but hat was not enough and the system voltage collapsed, as well as manual load shedding. It is my understanding that ERCOT lost roughly 15,000 Megawatts through UF relay or manual load shedding. In the areas where manual load shedding occurred they have been keeping customers on for a couple of hours, then off for several hours then back on.

To make matters worse, when the system voltage decayed and collapsed the natural gas pumping stations went down, so now they can’t get their peaking gas turbines on line as there is insufficient gas pressure, and that’s assuming they have black start capability.

ERCOT is basically a stand alone entity, and the last time I checked they had one very small tie to WECC for restart power.

The name of the company that brought this to you? “The Texas commission for reliable energy”. Cant make this stuff up!

Im sorry you’re having to go through this.. hope you will be back on soon...I can tell you for sure the people who run the system are doing everything they can to get your power back on, that’s what they do.

 

[buckbuck]

I have been in touch with my Fort Worth kids quite a bit since Saturday. They are abandoning the house as they have only had electricity a couple hours since yesterday. No water since yesterday and the house is in the low 40's. Headed to a friend that still has power.
They had to place my week old grandson between them last night to keep him warm. That's the part that stirred the emotions in this new grandpa. Here he is watching last Thursdays ice storm.

 

[BigN8]

Power to our water supply been in and out all day. I've been diligent with leaving all hot water faucets cracked slightly to allow a slight flow. Finally paid off after 36 hours I think. I now have flowing hot water from all faucets and was actually able to make some dish water to do the dishes from the past 2 days. Never been so excited to dishes in my life!!!

 

[haknslash]

Yay glad to hear! This thread re indeed me to let my faucets drip last night. We got some snow and ice today but nothing like those in Texas got. Feel for them!

 

[jthackman]

in mid-cities, luckily our water stayed on and no frozen pipes yet....but our power went off 3am monday morning....came back on around 3pm today..36 hours off-grid sucks
we have gas fireplace (vent-less), gas water heater, gas furnace...we were able to keep the fp on so living/kit/din area was staying around 70, bedrooms were around 58...cold but could bundle up. neighbors vented gas fp kept his living room around 60...i'm thankful for the extra 10 degrees.
finally opened fridge around 5pm yesterday to get some leftovers out for dinner. it was 50 in there so we emptied fridge and frzr to coolers and totes and put on the patio.
supposed to have some more snow/sleet tonight...pita
starting the generator/transfer switch research....while i have power

 

[BigN8]

I installed this setup a year ago. Crazy thing is I haven’t needed it since installed. I bought a Cat generator at Lowe’s on sale. Think it was 12.5k watts. Had a local retired electrician wire a 240v plug in the garage that is wired to a lockout breaker on my panel. Tested it during the summer. Ran the downstairs AC us all circuits downstairs no problem. Cheap insurance.