WEATHER STRIPPING - DONE RIGHT!

So for years, the boys have been complaining that the pipes will always freeze out there in Dad's house.  So Dad's solution was to put some heat tape on the pipes, turn the furnace up and to leave the water running all the time in the sink.  I never investigated why it was so cold out there or why the pipes froze because they are intelligent human beings and are capable of figuring these things out , right?  Well, perhaps its just a male-ism or maybe its cuz when you get older you just don't want to investigate too deeply into something (example - husband yells to wife from kitchen, "Honey, where is the leftover potatoes i made the other night? I can't find them in the fridge." Wife responds from living room couch, "they are right in front of your face behind the milk."  "Oh yeah, thanks!"), but when i went out to investigate why the water wasn't coming out of the sink when i went to rinse the milk jar out - i found out exactly why the pipes are freezing!  Not only is the pipe located just a mere 4" from the old, rickety door that doesn't completely shut, so freezing air is being blown directly onto the pipe, there is also a nearly 2" gap between the window sill and the wall, were freezing air is coming in!  Now, i might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but common logic would determine that this is not operant conditions for keeping pipes from freezing.  When i pointed this out - his response was, "Well, I'll be!  It's no wonder the pipes were freezing!"  Now i love my husband dearly, but OMG! this warrants an OMG! I mean, really?

Trip to Menards and $75 later i got a heat tape, two cans of that gap filler stuff that looks like yellow, puffy marshmallows, pipe insulation, weather stripping for the doors, and plastic window coverings.

I proceded to fill in the gaps in the wall, put new weather stripping on the door, filled in the holes around the door with insulation, turned off the lights and closed the door to make sure i could see if there were any more gaps, filled them, put the insulation on the pipes, put the heat tape on, got the thermometer, and waited.  Within an hour, the pipes were unfrozen, the temperature went up 40 degrees and the water was flowing.

Not rocket science.