Anyone who has ever lived in a colder climate has likely heard the hack of leaving faucets lightly dripping overnight during the coldest months to prevent the pipes from freezing.
It should be a very mild drip, and the water should be at least warm, to help counteract the chilling temperatures.
If the hack doesn't work, at the very least, the water dripping will freeze, but at the worst, the pipes will freeze, blow apart at the joints, and lead to water going in parts of the home where it's not supposed to go, and perhaps even make large holes in walls from sudden water pressure.
When her area was dropping to freezing temperatures, TikToker @elaine.marie21 took the hack seriously and left the water running in her kitchen.
Unfortunately, when she next looked at the faucet, she found an unfortunate surprise. The entire stream of water had turned completely to ice.
The TikToker questioned in a text overlay:
"I thought we kept water dripping so it wouldn't freeze?"
In the caption, she asked:
"Can someone tell me [what the hell] is going on?"
You can watch the TikTok video here:
Some fellow TikTokers totally empathized with TikToker @peachie.peach21 after experiencing frozen pipes.
Despite using the hack, there are still sometimes going to be issues, especially in older homes with older—possibly out-of-code—pipes, as well as geographic locations that experience far more extreme temperatures.
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
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@peachie.peach21/TikTok
But most couldn't help but joke about how cold her house must be to allow this to happen.
All of the empathy aside, it was still surprising and a little bit hilarious that so much water was able to freeze, and that the hack didn't seem to help the TikToker at all.
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
@peachie.peach21/TikTok
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At-home hacks are helpful and all, but they are their most helpful when their steps are carefully followed. For example, with leaving a faucet dripping, the steps are clearly to leave the water at a mild drip, not running, and the water should be hot to coat the pipes against the cold temperatures.
It seems from the video that the TikToker might have been overzealous with the hack, and as surprising as the results might be, there were repercussions to changing up the hack.
@tulipanet/Bluesky
@which–witch–ru/Bluesky
@phillip–rees/Bluesky
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social