Hopefully, everyone got the chance to winterize everything before the deep freeze hit us. Still, I suspect there are some surprises just waiting to be discovered.

We turn the breaker off to the well, drain lines and pour antifreeze in the toilets before we leave the ranch in the winter.

Perfect no surprises in the spring.

I’m headed there now. Hopefully it’s nothing major but I’m expecting issues

That’s a good plan

We do the same. We forgot to drain the HW heater so I’m thinking it might be a goner. But it was on its last legs anyway....

I forgot to drain mine as well....

Hope it’s all OK. Be safe on the road.

Driving up tomorrow. Neighbors said we had rolling blackouts, but they were short outages. We should be good in the house. There is one outside faucet that I'm worried about, but it should be an easy fix if I can find parts.

JR

LO just called saying our water faucet used for the campers appears to have bursted so he turned it off at the well. May be another week before he can get to it. No biggie. I have never drained the water heater in the trailer but It might have bit me this time. Was -9 out there. Going out there next weekend to fill feeders.

Just talked to ranch forman.They have been without electricity for 7-8 days. That means our camp as well. Asked him to check on freezer and throw out
anything that looked bad. Cows and deer seem to be fine. The other ranches with sheep and goats between eldorado and sonora not so good.

Frozen / cracked galv. union in well house which had a heat lamp, split p-trap in kitchen and a frozen and cracked galv. ell in bathroom.
Water was turned off and comode empty, faucets were open.

It was cold at the lease. The good everything in trailer good. Had drained HW heater, drained fresh water tank, drained water from lines added anti freeze to grey and black tanks.

Hoping the best for our camper. I drained everything and added antifreeze to all the traps. But it was really cold for a long time so fingers crossed. Hope to go out this next weekend and check everything.

We had a busted water line on the well but everything else looked good.

we didn't have to worry about it, our water line in my travel trailer froze & burst back in Nov. and I haven't taken time away from hunting to fix it. I am dreading it because it's under the floor and I will have to crawl under the trailer and drop out all the panels and likely the tanks, going to be a royal PITB.

Could you connect a new line with the old and pull it through or is the run too far?

May have to add to our regiment for down there. In south duval county freezing is generally not a concern.

Our water heater/toilet are inside an insulated metal building and inside an insulated barndominium, so think they are ok. My concern is the well pressure tank and above ground piping, at least it is turned off i guess.

I lucked out at my place in Stonewall County. I didn't lose electricity so my heat lamp kept my pump from freezing. Praise the Lord for no frozen or busted lines.

Does everyone not cut everything off every time they leave their place? Seems risky as heck not to no matter what the weather is.

We leave the breaker to the fridge and deep freezers on, everything else is off.

same here ... BUT someone forgot to open all the faucets in the trailer back in Nov.

Sometimes the fittings they use on the trailers is weak and that is what will break. Maybe you will get lucky, the problem generally is you don't have the parts on hand to make the repair. My trailer has the shower on the side of the trailer for washing sand off or maybe pets. that has frozen twice in the past and after the repair last time I stuffed a towel inside the access door and that solved the problem.

this happened once before, appears to be the same location ...

my friend bought the trailer new and parked it on his ranch, spent maybe 3 nights in it when his wife decided that was not her cup of tea, so it just sat for a year or so. They divorced, he sold his truck and he was chasing tail. Called me out of the blue asking if I would go get his travel trailer, bring to town and check it all out as he had a date in a few weeks with some rich gal to a cowboy trail ride where he needed the trailer and she could tow it with her 1 ton.

Okay, what are friends for but to help? I get the keys from him and go to the ranch to find 4 flat tires on the trailer, all dry rotted from exposure. I call a mobile tire guy I knew who came out with 4 new tires and got that taken care of. I take the trailer to my dad's shop but it was getting pretty late and dad told me he would check out the trailer the next day. Okay, the "hard" part is done, right?

the next evening I get a call from dad who informed me there was a bad water leak underneath but not something he wanted to tackle at 85 years old by himself. I told him I would call around and find some place that worked on travel trailers (my friend could afford it). The next evening I talked to dad and he had a story for me. He opened up the trailer and was just doing general cleaning, vacuuming, countertops, etc. When he opened the refrigerator to check it out and clean. As he opened the door, something came hauling arse out, several of them, of course he thought rattlesnake and jumped backwards to get away from whatever these little devils were that would pouring out at his feet as he was swinging the broom he had in his hands like crazy. It was a nest of squirrels. Evidently, the mother squirrel chewed thru the refrigerator vent screen on top of the trailer and crawled down to make her a new nest. While she was cleaning out an area big enough for her nest, she gnawed thru the insulation and plastic liner of the refrigerator, so she had a nice size areas inside to build her new nest. There were 3-4 baby squirrels that came bailing out when dad opened the door. So after flailing like a mad man, dad got the babies out of the trailer and they lived the rest of their lives in the trees around his shop.

ok, back to the water line. I called my friend with the news, he said screw it, just sell the trailer for him, to which I offered to buy at a drastically reduced price due to the issues that had to be fixed from his neglect while out at the ranch. He said sure, I'll mail you the title & paperwork. I had found a RV shop that had an opening to fix the water issue. After them having it for a couple of weeks, they said they had to drop all the grey & black water tanks to access the plumbing between the water heater and bathroom. The actual fix is probably not bad, but getting to it will be the challenge.

oh yeah, the refrigerator worked, so I put new insulation in thru the access port from the outside and found some flat thin plastic to epoxy inside to cover up the hole where the squirrel came thru.

Over the years I have had all of the cover and insulation off from the bottom. at that time i covered all water lines with that foam insulation that you normally see on copper pipes for example. Quite a story on the trailer you now have.

yep, when I finally have time to crawl under there and start taking things apart, there will be additional insulation added on that plumbing.

oh yeah, and for years that I have owned the trailer, it has been pretty simple to turn the pump off and merely open up all the faucets (sink, bathroom sink, bathtub, water heater and lastly flush the toilet) to release all water pressure in the trailer ... never had an issue.

edit, take that back, lost the kitchen faucet 2 years ago because it wasn't left open but that was a fairly easy replacement.

A lesson I learned for others intel...

A couple of years ago the outside water hose on my camper froze on a morning it barely got to 32. No big deal as no immediate damage was done, but I did not realize the sink faucet had also split, and with no pressure it wasn't leaking. I went out to hunt, with no idea the tap was broken. Bad mistake - once the hose thawed, water started flowing, filling my gray water tank and then flooding the camper. It was a big mess.

Be sure everything is closed and no leaks when anything freezes on a TT.

Fredericksburg and north got blasted with busted up live oaks and cedars and snapped utility poles on 87. I have some pretty busted up live oaks and broken fittings at the well. Hopefully nothing more than some busted pvc. I've been busy today with the chain saw getting broken limbs off my fence and cleaned up around the camp.

I also found this dead whitetail buck. Hard to say when he went down

I do. We had frozen lines but since they were PEX they defrosted with no problems. Rolling blackouts every hour or so. My Vogelzang wood burner kept us alive.

I winterize when below freezing temps are expected. Just South of Bowie and I don’t live there.

Shut off power to the well. Drain pump, pressure tank, and lines. Start a small electric heater with thermostat controls. But, since freezes are often accompanied by electrical outages,I can’t count on this.

Then to trailer house. Blow water lines with small compressor after dumping water from toilet tank into bowl. Dip out most of bowl. Pour windshield washer anti freeze into kitchen and bathroom traps.

On occasion I have busted water lines under the house due to them dropping down/sagging and water collecting there.

No leaks after the recent big freeze but it was a pleasant surprise.

Man I hate the thought of what I may find in my trailer when I'm finally able to get down to it. I'm not too concerned about the water lines, etc., as I routinely drain everything and blow it all out with an air compressor each time I leave. HOWEVER, I did go off and totally forgot to put all my bottled water, soft drinks, beer, etc. in the shower/tub so they wouldn't leak out all over when things thawed out. I may have a real mess.......

Bottles or cans with no room for expansion could be a problem. I freeze gallon jugs of water and leave room for expansion and even through several thaw freeze cycles they rarely crack.

Heading up to my place in Dickens next week. Advised by the fellow grazing cattle on my place that the well was spraying water all over from pipes and fittings, Also my pressure tank base split. Had heat tapes on that worked for 10 years however with periodic power shut downs they lost effectiveness.
Purchased new tank and other components that I hope will prevent a run to Lubbock once I get there.
We had 17 degrees in Corpus which froze pipes in my northwest wall with water running so I guess below zero temps were too much for my ranch system

Made a quick trip to one of my leases Tuesday afternoon when I got off work. It is a mess out there. Our camp has a small portable building as a camphouse and I added on a covered area attached to it with a picnic table- that go abused and had some the structural lumber busted and the roof is sagging. Dozens of busted off pine tree limbs laying along or on the road going thru the lease and two big pine trees laying across the road- I will be out there Saturday morning with my tractor and chainsaw to see if I can't get them cleared out of the way.

Funny, only had burst pipes that were PVC. The galvanized pipe was all okay.

Our community camp water supply system came out fine. Not our first rodeo so we had taken some precautions. Lots of individual trailers for the guys so we will see on those. My can goods didnt bust but some 7up cans did. Rancher said one cow and one bull did the splits on a frozen pond and had to be put down. He has seen lots of dead small birds. Some one may of posted this but if you rely on an electric heater with digital thermostat then it will not restart after losing power briefly.

Got up to our place in Telephone and was amazed to not have any issues. Cannot believe the outside pipe made it intact!!

JR

Pay the preacher.

I stopped by a buddy’s ranch this week to check on it. All looked ok and I called him to see if he wanted me to turn on the water. I did and the water heater was busted. Pipes under the house were busted too. It’ll take a lot of beer to get the place fixed back up but I think we’re up to it. Pipes will be drained after each winter trip from now on.

Checked our camp and we didn’t have anything broken thankfully. Even the fittings on the above ground water tank/on demand pump managed to not bust. I semi winterized our trailer before this happened by draining the water heater and opening all the faucets to let water flow back down into the tank. Didn’t drain the tank or flush the lines but apparently that was good enough. Did put antifreeze in the traps. I consider ourselves lucky still.

Got the plumbing from the cistern to the pressure tank and then the manifold fixed only to figure out the pump on the pressure tank is gone gone.

Some stories are too good not to be told.
I provide a house on one of my places for my hunters. I do the majors, they take care of the minors. Common arrangement. Finished feeding one evening early enough to check their house for problems after the wreck. Quick walkthrough before I pressured up the water. DARN...toilet tank busted...40 pound block of ice! Double darn...I just replaced that thing last year. Someone forgot to flush it. Cut the water off to the toilet, closed all the other faucets, turned on the water and NO LEAKS. Good day after all but they get to replace the toilet this time. Shut water off, drained everything and went home. Fast forward a week and one of the guys showed up with a new toilet. Did the installation and everything was fine UNTILL...the kitchen faucet blew out. Water spraying up like Old Faithful. It was a scene right out of an I Love Lucy show. Our rural water supply company had several major watermain breaks and we had lots of air in our lines. To add to that, the kitchen sink was installed 75 years ago and BOOM.

we winterize and blow the lines.. went this week and boom.. the water left in the check valve in the dishwasher cracked it...crazy..THEN....my water filter to my fridge had water in it and cracked it too..the little things we forget...our cabins sit up 18 inches off the ground to keep rodents and snakes from getting under there...we keep our heat set at 55....live and learn....

Checked my east TX lease yesterday and found that the weight of the snow collapsed all my pop up blind roofs. I was leaving them out to get in a few more hog hunts before it gets too hot. That was a costly mistake, several of them are not going to be salvageable.

Arrived weds to my cabin in Dickens and as expected from rancher input my pressure tank was broken at the base and scrap. Had purchased a new one on line and brought it up from Corpus. Had also bought some misc parts like 2 mew universal connections. Went together quite quickly Hit the switch and held my breathe and no other damage as the pressure hit the 60 lb level and stayed put. After 10 years of operation felt pretty good this was the only problem I've had with the well

Some of the fellas got down there. They went ahead and replaced the manifold entirely. Also had to install a new pump. The boys mad it look good -


Turned the water on to my trailer and saw a leak right at my feed. Got that fixed with a new elbow, some primer and some glue. Noticed a lil' issue farther down where the feed goes to the toilet. No 1/2 inch PVVC so got to head to Cotulla and found some at Ace. Two road construction stops along the way added thirty minutes or so to the jaunt. Picked up two sticks and an extra set of shark bites (just in case). Got that done and oops, a leak at the feed to the shower. Got that fixed and then oops, a leak on an interior wall that gets to the shower.

A leak on an inside wall? What? Why me? oh well. Gonna have to pull the cabinet that the microwave and coffee make sit on. That'll be for another day.

Maybe pull drawers, cut slide bracing out and work through that opening? Or move stove, cut hole through side of cabinets?

Yep, exactly what i am thinking. two bolts on the counter holding it together. Gonna be fun

Even though we turn our water off we got hammered. After several conversations with PEC and them telling me we were under a rolling blackout I got the read out on the main house. We went dark at 4:15 Sunday and didn't have/use any power until the following Monday (week) according to their records. I recorded temps at night of 2*, 9*, 13*,11* and we didn't see 20* daytime for 41/2 days. To say we froze might be an understatement. Anyway, four weeks later we have replaced 150ft or more of main inbound line, 90% or more of cold piping, 70% of our hot lines, all our valves, pea traps, h2o lines in the garage, commode lines, repaired 3 of our wells. A lot of this could have been mitigated if PEC WOULD have communicated their plan of action....... and our lines were insulated! So in the rebuild we put drains in this time along with thicker insulation. Its not been a fun month but were back!!!

We were lucky or prepared. Probably a combo of both but I'll take it. Water manifold sits below grade from camp so opening the south end of that and opening all faucets to all a good back-drain saved our collective behinds. One camper had a toilet valve crack because he did not flush it after we killed water and allow the water to back-flow. We have a small water heater to outside sink I was most worried about but it clearly had enough water drain from the shutdown to not create issues.

Finally made it to Concho county two weeks ago for the first time since the freeze. I had left multiple gallon jugs of water, bottled water, and two cases of soda cans in my travel trailer, so expectations were not good. I did winterize the trailer in December, and fortunately the only issues I found were two DP cans exploded, and a small crack developed in one of the gallon jugs of water, however the crack was high up the handle and only minimal water escaped. I cannot believe my good fortune. I really dodged a bullet.

Both my sons and my trailer had hot water heater tanks bust.

We never lost power at camp. I was worried about my water heater as I never drain it. Went last week and the trailer was fine except the water pump is running constantly and very loud even with the water disconnected. It's under the fold out sofa and I cant get to it right now due to my knee. I suspect some air or maybe trash got in the line. LO had to replace the faucet and line coming from the well after it froze and busted and I forgot and just re-hooked up my hose without blowing it out. Ordered a new pump ($57) and hope I can bend my knee enough so I can replace it in a couple of weeks.

That’s rough, did you drain your lines or open your faucets to relieve pressure beforehand?