Well, turns out we were right to be worried that the kitchen pipes might freeze, because they did. I came downstairs this morning, Saturday, and checked to see that the kitchen faucet still worked. It didn’t. I tried thawing the pipes gently with a blow dryer and the pipe objected, bursting a fitting and spraying me and the kitchen pretty thoroughly.

When the addition was put on the house, apparently most of the installation that used to be on the kitchen corner of the house was removed. Behind the counter on the South side there is no insulation and no interior gyp board either so that side had only a half-inch of gyp on the outside and then a few three-quarter pine planks. The faucet side had about an inch of fiber glass with lots of holes in it.

After my unanticipated shower, icicles formed on the pipes in the sink cabinet. Even the drain was frozen.

Fortunately, the builders had planned to work Saturday and were on hand to help repair and mitigate the pipe problem. They pulled off the exterior sheathing and put in sufficient fiberglass and they covered back over with salvaged wood from the dining room. It only has to last a month or so cause the kitchen will get deconstructed once the addition is weather tight.

Rebuilt kitchen walls so the pipes don’t freeze again.

Also done today was the rebuilding of the East ledger and family room floor. They even began adding support for the new family room floor which will be up about 8 inches from the old one.

The rebuilt sill, rim joist and new rim joist for the family room.

At the suggestion of the builder, I enlisted Stover and Britt to venture into the crawl space and pull out the old insulation. It will be replaced with closed-cell foam. The kids were great; they made quite a pile of fiberglass.

Insulation from below the family room.