SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Video sent to News 6 by Dave in Seminole County shows his results after prepping for the frigid cold we all woke up to Sunday in Central Florida.
Those wake-up temperatures dipped into the low 20s in Seminole County, with Sanford among the many Central Florida cities that shattered decades-old records.
Using a thermal-imaging camera, Dave walked viewers through some of his cold-weather preps and showed what effect they had. First up, an outdoor faucet that he left on a slow drip overnight.
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Rare, prolonged cold such as this becomes a concern for pipes when temperatures stay below freezing for more than four to six hours. Water left in pipes can expand while freezing, in some cases bursting when plumbing is closer to the surface and not designed for or protected from the cold.
Here, Dave shows the simple precaution of letting an outdoor faucet drip overnight. A slow, steady drip will keep water moving and greatly reduce the chance of freezing.
The video shows that while the faucet is still pretty cold by most standards, it’s also staying above that freezing temperature of 32, a job well done.
Next, Dave walks over to a plant that he wrapped in preparation for the freezing cold.
The video shows the plant holding onto heat invisible to the naked eye. Tilting down, the camera captures a glowing mass of tendrils indicative that the plant is holding on to heat with its root system.
Hidden survival methods aside, many plants need all the help they can get with weather this cold. As a general rule of thumb, just a couple hours or more in temperatures below 30 degrees can severely damage if not kill tender plants and a hard freeze of 25 degrees or colder can just kill them outright.
It’s recommended to cover plants the prior afternoon or evening, and keep in mind that some plants — like Brussels sprouts — can actually tolerate temperatures as low as 20 degrees, so treat different plants as according to their needs.
Turning to more water-related preps, Dave shows us a sink that he left running, as well as his pool.
In the sink, the running water makes for a drastic temperature difference, with the faucet some 40 degrees warmer than its surroundings. The same can be said for Dave’s pool, which he kept above freezing while even the deck surrounding it fell well below 30 degrees.
Whether you have an in-ground pool like Dave, or one above ground, it’s recommended to keep it running when it gets this cold. Just like with the dripping faucets, running water is just far less likely to freeze overnight. A possible option is to set your pool pump to automatically turn on when temperatures fall below 40 degrees.
Watch Dave’s video in the player at the top of this story.
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