Leaving taps dripping, to prevent pipes from freezing?

[Phil473]

In brief;

-Will leaving a tap dripping help prevent freezing and/or a pipe bursting?

- I'm leaving the hot water tap dripping in order to prevent pipes freezing, as its just a drip the boiler is not coming on. Should this be ok for boiler and pipework?

- Also, if I were to turn the water off from the mains how would I drain the hot water taps, without the boiler coming on? Would just keeping a hot water tap dripping until it drained be fine?

More detail;

Current boiler is on the way out and wont be replaced for a couple of weeks. I'm getting a flow temparture of around 40C only which keeps the house at around 12C. So as an added precaution to prevent freezing, I'm leaving a couple of cold taps and one hot water tap dripping overnight.

Here in the South East we have about a week at around feezing coming up. So I may turn the water off at the mains and drain the cold taps overnight. As I've asked above, would leaving the hot water tap dripping so that it eventually empties without the boiler coming on, be ok?

The advice coming from the US is that a dripping tap will relieve the pressure of a frozen pipe, thus helping to prevent them from bursting. That combined with the water moving slightly, should help.

The counter argument from British Gas, is that a dripping tap could cause a drain to freeze, causing an overflow. That doesn't really make much sense to me. Surely if the drain was prone to freezing from a dripping tap, you'd have some serious problems.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/beat-the-weather/prevent-frozen-pipes.html

Whole load of US vids on youtube regarding dripping taps, during a freeze.

Advice appreciated,

Thank you.

 

[jj4091]

The only sure way of preventing freezing is to turn off water at the main stopcock. Open all taps and leave them open. drain down central heasting boiler and any hot water and header tanks.