My dad always made me drip the faucets when I was growing up, should I drip them now? I am in Austin btw.

Went to the city of Austin utilities page and they recommend dripping the outdoor faucets for hard freezes like tonight. I guess I could have done that before asking you guys.

I just wrapped the hell out of mine (insulation, duct tape, shirt, duct tape, plastic bag, duct tape). Slow streaming a few inside faucets.

YES, drip your outside faucets. Dripping them is more reliable than wrapping them. Wrapping them relies on heat bleeding from the inside of the house to the pipes/taps, which isn't as reliable with this deep of a freeze.

I was lazy and didn't drip any faucets. Wife called (teacher, so at home today) and said the kitchen faucet won't work and the dishwasher won't work. I told her to open up the lines on the faucet and open the cabinet under the sink. Then put a space heater pointed at the cabinets.

She called me about 45 minutes later and said she the hot water works now, but not cold water. That was over an hour ago, so who knows. Didn't even think about outside. Going to try them when I get home, but fully expect them to be frozen. Hope my pipes don't burst.

Drip them. Wrap isn't worth s**t in this type of freeze.

If you "drip" a frost proof hydrant you will likely cause it to break.

Well the pipes were dripping but froze. So I just wrapped them and put the styrofoam covers on them. I will drip the inside faucets to help with any pressure issues. Heck, I don't know if that will help, but I will do it.

I had my "frost proof" faucets covered with the "good" covers and they froze the first night of this mess in Dallas.

All that you can do is disconnect all hoses/adapters/splitters/etc, put covers on, and cross your fingers. If anything is connected to the fp or it is incorrectly installed the siphon breaker will not properly drain the exposed piping. That said, homes in this area are simply not built to withstand this type of weather. Here in the dfw area we've started to see lines in various exterior walls freeze up. We've got all of our guys sitting at home waiting for the thaw Saturday...it's going to be ugly. No superbowl for us this year.

So once they freeze, I'm thinking it probably froze in the pipe to the faucet not the faucet itself, is it better to open the valve or leave it closed?

I've read leave it open, relieves some pressure even if it's already frozen

Only way to truly prevent frozen pipes is to cut the water off to your house and run all the water out of the pipes. No water to freeze, no busted pipes. You can cut the water off at the meter, or newer homes will have a cut off at the main line coming in to the house.

One off my two outside faucets unfroze this morning. So far no leaks. The other should this afternoon. I had them covered initially then opened the valves slightly the morning I discovered things were frozen. Don't know if that helped my cause or not.

We are 2 for 3 on our frozen pipes thawing without leaks so far. The upstairs bath unfroze last night. Kept checking with my IR camera and have found no leaks.