Kswl, I'm so sorry, but amazed you've come through this with your sense of humor intact. You have a great GC! Buy his wife flowers. Here in SC we've got a bit of a situation here at the marina. It's gotten down into the teens for a couple of nights running, and while the marina staff turned off the water to the docks Sunday and opened all the valves at each and every spigot on our power stands,the pipes didn't drain sufficiently and there are shattered water pipes on every dock and the main dock. I think they're going to have to replace all the water lines. Meanwhile we have no water to the boats. On our own boat we're having problems with our water pump, and we've got to keep our hot water heater running, because we're afraid our own water lines will freeze. We can't run water continously because our water tank is finite, only half full, and who knows when we'll have a water source again from the dock. I'm ready for this weather pattern to abate.

I have had that happen when I lived in Oklahoma, with my big water bottles that are delivered, we had them outside and one winter that was exceptionally cold, even my pool froze solid enough for my danes to walk on it, my big water bottles did that, it appeared fine and not frozen but the minute we picked it up to bring it in to put on the cooler zap solid ice.

We're in MN in a hundred year old house we've lived in for nearly 30 years. We haven't done what you are contemplating, but I can see what the guy may be referring to. If you introduce another opening into the wall, even if you wrap those pipes in insulation, they would still be exposed to that very cold air since the rest of your wall space is basically an uninsulated void that could reach potentially be very cold IF an extreme cold snap came. Our kitchen plumbing is copper and on an exterior wall, but when we first moved in many years ago we insulated all of the walls in the house. Nonetheless, when we are anticipating really cold weather like twenty below, we open the doors in the sink cabinet so the warmer room air will get into that cabinet space and keep things a bit warmer than if the doors were closed. The problem comes if the water is not flowing through the pipes (think being on vacation). Some people around here if super cold weather is anticipated might also leave their faucet running at a slow rate all night to keep things moving. It is not as much a problem during the day because the sink would be constantly used during normal activities.

Our front yard (back in March) no snow yet, although tomorrow were supposed to have sleet and freezing rain.