Cold enough to freeze the hot water pipes nearly solid (that’s 7 degrees F).  While they’re dripping out rust right now, we realized that our central heating, which doesn’t do a whole lot to keep our poorly insulated home warm, does do a good job of keeping the pipes defrosted.  Last night we had a roaring fire, which kept the heat down, thus the pipes under the house got cold quick.

The plumber’s coming by this afternoon to help us figure out how to prevent this in the future.  Don’t know how much he’s gonna charge us to squeeze into our minuscule crawl space…in 20 degree weather.   It’s too bad the dog a) doesn’t have opposable thumbs, and b) isn’t all that bright, or else we’d be able to send her under the house.