Drops of Hope

On Friday morning the alarm went off at 6:31am. I reached over and killed it, then entered into the blissful netherworld of semi-sleep, the kind we learn about in middle school when we tell our parents, "Just five more minutes!"

At about 6:45 the tasks of the day, armed with the battering ram of worry, breached the gates of my slumber-castle. I awoke and began my morning routine. I dismounted the bed, pulled on a few layers of clothes, trundled down the stairs, and opened the dog's food. The sound of popping plastic roused Sadie; the jangle of her collar announced the beginning of her morning routine.

I picked up her water-bowl and stalked through the dark kitchen, admiring the pale white of the frosted forest outside. The bowl touched the metal sink with a plunk, and I turned on the cold water tap.

Nothing.

A shiver passed through my soul. I tried the hot water tap. An equally articulate silence met my ears. Not even a cough, a sputter, or a spit. The dog bowl sat empty in the darkness. My admiration for the white frosty morning went--well, cold.

In the interest of keeping this blog family-friendly, I shall not record here the thought that went through my head. I turned on the kitchen light and read the outdoor thermometer. Its stoic black digital readout declared: -6 degrees. My suspicions were confirmed: frozen pipes, the bogeyman of homeowners throughout the northern states, had come to call this morning.

I checked the taps in the bathrooms and showers. All of them flowed freely. I thanked the Lord it was so; perhaps the isolation of the kitchen faucet meant that the ice had not spread far, and therefore would not burst our plumbing. My gratitude stopped there, however, for I realized that to access the kitchen pipes meant getting under the counter.

This corner of our house has been cold since we bought it. The draft that keeps our living room from being cozy comes from this precise spot. I suspect that the person who built the house only expected it to be used in the summer months; that or he ran out of materials and thought, "If I leave huge holes in the walls under the kitchen counter, no one will notice." Unless you're not a Yeti. Then you'll notice.

I pulled the dishwasher out from under the counter, which required disconnecting the water supply. (Mental note: get a 48-inch connector so I don't have to play Gumby to get it out.) A quick inspection with the flashlight revealed that I had found the secret location of the all-night poker parties played by our resident mice. There was also a picture-window sized hole in the drywall through which cold air poured in. I put a hand on the copper pipes that ran along the outside wall: frigid. Removing the insulation from behind the floor cabinets exposed me to a draft that made NASA wind tunnels look tame. No wonder the pipes had frozen.

I opened up the taps and crawled behind the cabinets. First with Sara's hairdryer, then with the heat gun she uses for melting candle wax, I blew hot air across the copper tubes. With hands and knees against the cold tile, I imagined the pipes breaking and water pouring out between studs in our poorly-insulated walls. Vision of dollar-signs danced in my head, while the tap remained ominously silent. After four or five rounds with the heat gun, I extracted myself from under the counter and sat back to reconnoitre the situation. That's when I heard it.

Drops.

The kitchen faucet dripped to a slow rhythm, the clear cold tears falling with patient reserve. My drops of hope.

I turned the heat gun back on and massaged the pipes with its warm effluence. The drops got faster and faster, until they were a thin stream trickling into the metal basin. With unbound fervor the cascade thickened until it poured into the sink. Hallelujah! I felt like an oil speculator must feel when black gold comes gushing out of the ground.

I turned off the cold water tap, and felt another pang of fear. With only the hot water tap open, no more water flowed. It figures that the hot water pipe would stay frozen after the cold water had melted. Sigh. I spent another ten minutes under the counter, until both pipes felt warm to the touch. Still no hot water.

By now the dishwasher was out in the middle of the kitchen, the cupboards under the sink were emptied on the floor, and I had spent my dog-walking and breakfast time battling the arctic chill coming in through our wall. To get at the pipes further into the wall would require some major demolition--not the kind I want to begin on a Friday morning when it's -6 degrees out and we've got a baby on the way.

In desperate hope that maybe the blockage had occured near the junction with another pipe, I opened all the hot water taps in the house and let them run. After turning on the shower upstairs I came down the steps into the kitchen and heard it: the sweet sound of hot water running from the kitchen tap. Hallelujah again!

The magic temperature seems to be 0 degrees. The two previous nights, when the temperature reached about 5 degrees, we had no problems. So Saturday night, when the outside cold dipped to -9, we let the kitchen faucet drip until morning. And I added another quirk to the long list of this hobby house.

It looks like I'll have to prioritize fixing that wall behind the counter next spring. I don't want to do this again next year.

~emrys