Low temperatures and night frost can damage the water pipes and meters, even in the domestic environment. But it is enough to take a few simple measures so that the frost does not cause damage.

To protect the counter from freezing it is recommended to use insulating materials with which to wind it, the most suitable are polystyrene and polyurethane foam. Absolutely not recommended the use of newspapers or cloths in cloth: in case of absorption of water and humidity, they would only make the situation worse. The problem can be solved with an insulated meter.

Obviously, the pipes must also be protected from the cold. It is unlikely that frost will affect them if the house is inhabited and the water continuously used. But in case of freezing frost, or a few days away, the advice is to open a stream of running water, so that the water in constant movement avoids the formation of ice.

Prevention is better than cure, but in exceptional frost it may not be enough. If by opening the tap we don’t notice water coming there can be two explanations. If a pipe has broken due to frost and the water is leaking before reaching the tap, you must immediately close the main valve and call a plumber.

If, on the other hand, the water is frozen inside the pipes and constitutes a plug for circulation inside the water system, it is necessary to heat the external part (meter and pipes) using a jet of hot air, for example with a hairdryer : it takes some time, but you avoid thermal shocks that could damage the pipes themselves. The alternative is to wet the croaked section of the tube with boiling water, perhaps after having wrapped it with rags. It is never prudent to use open flames for defrosting, rather there are heating cables on the market, usually used by professionals: it is an electrical resistance covered by a plastic sheath that is wound in a spiral around the tube and subsequently connected to the eletricity grid. The advantage of the heating cables consists in the fact that they can also be applied to plastic pipes and not only metal.

How does polyp fishing work with plastic tubes? From north to south, from Alassio to Ragusa, every summer the interventions of the maritime police follow one another to remove and seize illegal traps of hundreds of PVC pipes (those of the gutter drains), which are cut, joined with a rope and anchored without the appropriate indications: the octopuses are attracted to these improvised “houses” and end up in the pan. Great to go with an octopus and potato salad, of course, but the fi sh must be caught and treated according to the regulations in force, reiterated in a recent circular by the State Undersecretary for agricultural, food, forestry and tourism policies, where it reads: “ To the octopus fi shing activities (octopus vulgaris), through the use of traps in plastic material (such as, for example, PVC), the current national and EU regulations on fi shing gear are applied, mutatis mutandis and / or placed on the bottom “. In other words, “the vessels authorized to carry out professional fi shing,
using tools fi xed and / or placed on the seabed, can hold and use a maximum quantity of plastic traps, to such an extent that, at any time, the the total number of these tools is not more than 250 units; the connection to a single main line is allowed, via or not secondary lines, up to a maximum of 10 plastic traps “. Instead, “in the sphere of sport / recreational fi shing, the holding and use of a maximum quantity of 2 plastic traps is allowed for each boat, regardless of the number of people on board”.

Metal pipes, cylinders, tires, in addition to the most easily imaginable plastic and glass bottles: this is what they found and gathered about 100 divers, engaged in cleaning the seabed of the island of Giannutri, within a project of the National Park Authority Tuscan Archipelago that wants to make citizens aware of good practices to reduce plastic consumption and prevent the abandonment of waste at sea. The divers have removed more than a ton of waste from the seabed which, selected by type, has been taken over by a specialist disposal company.

“His interventions, a sign of continuity in a space-time trajectory, appear as stainless steel tubes that, fluid and rigid at the same time, articulate the environments, imbuing them with charm and mutability”. Thus writes Gaia Dallera Ferrario to describe the artistic research of Italo Antico, born in Sardinia in 1934, always attentive to experimentation with materials and languages – painting, drawing for carpets, ceramics, creation of jewels – and, from the sixties, focused on sculpture, on space research and environmental installations, with the themes of the line and the set of lines at the center of his works. The result of his works are the very refined constructions in steel “tubes”, geometric and elegant shapes that vary with the light and draw ever new perspectives, inserted in the environmental context (often sacred) and in constant search for new spaces. As Plato stated, “the knowledge that geometry seeks is that of the eternal.”