lizql: no humidifier, ice maker, or garden hose (any leak outdoors would creat a significant amount of ice - I'm in Maine so it is still below freezing most of the time) So I tried shutting off the water supply to various items, and I think it happens to be my hot water heating system. I shut off the water supply line to the furnace and the water consumption basically stopped. When I turn it back on by meter reading slowly but steadily increases. You can also hear water running in the pipes. Turn off the water to the furnace and that running sound stops. This is with the power cut to the furnace so no circulators are running. I guess it's time to move this topic to a plumbing/heating forum since there definately appears to be a leak. I also tried shutting off the water out to the heating zones and to the domestic hot water, no change.

Thanks Weedmeister. Hmmmm, this brings up another issue I briefly read about on another thread. I don't know anything about this and would have never thought of it on my own. If we turn off the water supply, flip the breaker on the hot water heater and don't drain it, will the water be skunky monkey when we return a couple months later? Or, when we fire it up upon returning will that kill the bugs? After all, this does supply our kitchen. Draining it is not gonna happen, and I am probably making a mountain out of a mole hill here, but just thinking out loud. I wish my heater was on an outside wall. That would help. No such luck. The original floor plans called for this water heater to be installed in the attic. Our builders told us how much more trouble and expense it would be to install it that way. They convinced us to put it in this pantry closet. I don't think the attic would have been any better.....maybe in some ways even worse. Every replacement would have meant dragging a water heater up one of those pull down attic stair deals. Yikes! Makes my back hurt just thinking about it. Thank you.....thank you all.

Old galvanized pipes have a finite lifespan. If you repair this leak, you have a good chance of it developing another leak in another location. The only good solution is a complete pipe replacement. The major expense of a pipe replacement will involve the digging of the trench from the meter to the house. This is an area where a DIYer can save some money. Have the utilities companies come out and mark the location of the pipe and any other utilities going to the home. Then you can choose a route parallel to the current pipe but just far enough away from it that you aren't disturbing it. You can rent a trencher (Maybe $200) and hand dig the larger access points at the meter and house. Then you can call a plumber to lay the pipe and make the connections. If you are not physically capable of doing this, then do you have any family or friends that would be? Church group? Scout troop? There are usually community resources that can help you to figure out what you can do here. The worst thing you can do is to ignore the leak.

Something over 25 years ago we had an ice storm in early spring that covered hundreds of square miles and people were worried about losing food in freezers. A local radio station put on a message of my offer to carry borrowed generators to the area, and at one location their power had been out for over two days, with a freezer in a back porch, cool temperatures (early spring) and they'd covered the freezer with some coats. When we hooked up the generator, we opened the freezer. Everything was frozen hard. There were some blueberries in a plate on the top ... and there were ice crystals still on those blueberries. As long as there is a remnant of frozen goods in a package, the product is still safe to use. Divide your freezer into sections: one area for meats, another for veggies, fruits, etc. Make a chart to sit on top of what goods are stored in which area, one box for each item, with the date in the box that the food went in, and one crosses off the box when it's used. Cardboard boxes add insulation and tend to slow down the cooling and impede what air flow may be possible, but they make keeping the goods more easily accessible. String bags with several packages in each are helpful in keeping one type of food together, e.g. veggies. As the freezer sections in frigs tend to keep items just a few degrees below freezing, but separate freezers tend to keep them down near zero degrees, a number of people prefer to keep their ice cream in the freezer with the lower temperature, as it tends to keep its original characteristics longer. I agree that upright freezers are much less efficient, as they tend to spill all of their cold air every time that the door opens ... and there's space between the various items, so more cold air to drain out. We get milk in heavy plastic bags, three of them being just over a gallon being sold in another bag. The outside bag is of medium weight, but the inner ones, each holding well over a quart, are really thick, so I wash them out and use them to store various kinds of food, mainly from the garden. They do not develop the holes from being banged around, resulting in freezer burn, that the lighter bags do. Not a good idea to store frozen food for long periods - flavour tends to deteriorate. ole joyful