So there's a vent right under your floor, with little to no insulation to your floor with HOT AND COLD water lines running across it... America never fails to amaze me.
Too late now, but I might have thought about putting some 1-2" styrofoam insulation inside that air intake along the floor to maybe help your kitchen floor not have a cold spot.
It looks like that duct matches the joist bay dimensions exactly... because why not? What knucklehead did that I wonder? Edit: actually on closer review it looks like the "duct" is just the joist bay with sheet metal on the bottom...
Good thing it's PEX, that made your job a lot easier. Kind of crazy that they'd drill right through an air intake like that though. Normally high efficiency heaters use PVC pipes for air intakes and exhaust. I've also never seen a finished basement insulated from the rest of the house. Unless it's one heated from a separate heating system like a radiant floor heater.
oh i hate knocking down dry walls. It always left the place dusty for months. Even we cleaned up after the job, every few days, we could still see a very thin layer on furniture, especially dark color furniture.
The only guy that doesn't need any mechanic to repair anything for him, he does everything, if your kids becomes like you, and your grand kids, it's gonna be a perfect family to can survive everywhere 👍🏾
@@charliemccloskey8358 Basically everything. Houses in Norway are tougher, they never blow away, the dont rott in at least 40 years and they are better insulater, to handle the extreme cold. And the plumbing will never leak. It is a system called "Rør-i-Rør", if there's ever a leak, the water will just run out to a drain, and not inside thd wall.
Careful running pipes that close to ceiling. They could be easily punctured by drywall screws. They make nail plates when pipes and wires are close to walls.
@@ipant1056 this things are like thing they regulate so they dont happen. Even when the chances are .00001% of you puting a scre trought that specific part
For someone living in a colder climate, cutting corners on a remodel like this is absolutely ridiculous. About a foot's length of pipe in my parents house runs uninsulated but behind a thick leca block wall, and that freezes at very low temperatures (~0 F), and that was considered a big mistake here.
You didn't need to use that fancy drill, just some No More Nails adhesive as the patch is not structural. Jerry also didn't mix and thin the mud, never use ready mix mud direct from the bucket except to pre-fill panel gaps.
I can relate, I'm rebuilding my future house right now, no heating installed, living 3 hour away and watching the weather forecast hoping it won't get below zero inside the house.
Those clamps work really good. They are what I used in my house when I built it. What I did was ran all of my pipes in the attic and there’s no brakes in the pipe only a beginning and a end. No leaks.
we have a seasonal cottage that was once all copper line. when it wasn't drained properly in the fall, we always had burst copper lines in the spring when we opened it up for the season. Replaced everything with pex and never had an issue. It will freeze, but expands enough to not burst.
As a general contractor watching this is hilarious You did an ok job. I don’t know the codes in your area but be careful when it comes time to resell your house. Since you showed us how you did your “magic trick” repair plumbing job.
Have you considered converting to a higher efficiency furnace and just sealing off the envelope of the home? Not only is it easier for the furnace in terms of rust but it spares you the wet filters if it rains and you have it on.
Hot tip, when turning your water on, do it even slower than you are. It prevents a sudden rush of pressure, which is bad for the fixtures, and usually whatever faucet is closest to the valve takes a real pounding and can ruin it.
You can get a 90deg tool that can be use for tight access areas, it has 10mm chuck so you can drill, drive, sand etc That design you have fails at speed and has limit torque so be careful , thanks for the video from Wales 🏴 in the Uk
The main thing is wife approval, because happy wife happy life, you did a great job of fixing the situation, I have my older brother and his family living in Salt Lake City, beautiful place 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘🦘🦘But sending the love from Melbourne Australia, stay safe guys
If you have frozen pipes again, they sell pipe insulation wrap that you can plug into an outlet and it turns on when it detects a temp below freezing and it keeps the pipe just warm enough to the water inside doesn't freeze.
For future reference you can use a nap paint roller to get that same texture in your mud. Just dip the roller into the mud (preferably a large 5 gallon bucket) and spread it on. Works a lot faster. Then you could knock it down as needed to match your ceiling.
Primer before the texture! it helps it dry uniformly so you don't see the joint lines. Also you should have wrapped the cold line in contact with that metal duct. It might not be affected at 32, but it still might at 10.
I'm not sure if this is the same in US-houses, but where I live this wrap between the wood and the free space, where you put the pink stuff in, should be airtight. so the condensation stays outside the wood and will not rotten long term.
Such beautiful house! In Turkey we usually live in apartments which hosts dozens of people under same roof. And there is a very very big noise pollution problem which we can't solve.
Quick suggestion , for a added freeze protection, at the area inside of the ductwork now above the lines. How about lining that area with a foam kitchen floor mat . Pre-cut and Pre-sprayed with 3m adhesive. Put it above your pipes like a sticker inside of your vent. Application is probably going to go down like putting a pizza in a oven with a or. Boom I just G.R your fix....
Not saying it meets code, but if you're trying to hang something from your ceiling, you probably shouldn't just stab your drywall blindly? I'd be searching for a joist so I don't have to worry about the hook pulling out of the drywall!
im only 1:04 in but do u have the furnace in the crawl? or is intake only in crawl besides that idk why they would put ur pex without insulation under ur house where its going to get cold, sorry was just curious learning the Hvac trade been in for 3 years ish from 10 grade and im out of high school full time atm ... edit I forgot about ur basement
I know I'm late to the party but you might want to consider putting metal to block nails & screws from hitting the pipes. I'm not a plumber so I don't know code for that but I have watched a few remodel TV shows & if waterpipes are close enough to worry about screws or nails you put some metal in to protect it.
As a contractor, this pained me. I really hate textured ceilings. And also more than improper plumbing. Jk. Thats worse. But no. Take down the entire ceiling and make it smooth. Please
It would honestly be better if he just put in drop ceilings in the basement, I would save quite a bit of time when trying to fixing plumbing leaks and any other issues that may pop up over the years. Also as someone familiar with plumbing this is just a homeowner fix, normally you would run a copper pipe to the sink but that takes time to put together and requires the experience of sodering aswell. Everything he did is a temporary fix.
@@XAssassin_22 true story. When I bought my house it had the 70's 12"x12" fiberboard tiles with 1/4" plywood as a backing. I took it all down pretty much when I moved in, one because I hated it. Two because I had to do a complete rewire. Installed a drop ceiling because of this sort of thing. Easier to replace a tile or two, than patch a drywall ceiling.
The worst is that there is no actual duct. There should be a proper insulated duct for the intake. If that was done, he wouldn't have to do such a sketchy reroute.
In belgie kunnen ze er anders ook wat van, koud water naast cv leggen mag blijkbaar gewoon, dus als je koud water aanzet in de winter krijg je eerst warm water 😂
@@belgianbuilds6129 best erg, ik kom van Nederland en ben loodgieter. Als je dit in Nederland zou doen dan kan je jou bedrijf sluiten haha, maar hier in belgie kan dat gewoon
yes the ice expands about 9% in volume, howeverits not the ice that breaks the pipe, its the pressure the ice creates that blows the pipe, which is why water blows out at the pressure it does and in the area ahead of where the pipe froze. open up your taps will allow that pressure out but your pipes may still freeze in the right condition, however usually the flow will be enough to prevent ice from completely freezing under normal weather conditions. Im actually repairing my blown pipes right now after a week of sub -40 weather with windchill reaching the mid fifties minus c.
Zack your lever valve for the water shutoff for your house should be plumbed in so that if the lever falls it should fall in the off position, good for safety.
If it was a solid run of steel pipe for the gas line through there, I wouldn’t be concerned. But that last view into the duct showed a few CSST fittings inside the duct…that’s a HUGE no-no. Absolutely NO gas connections should be made inside ductwork of any kind.
One idea for improvement: You can put an insulated duct into that tunnel from outside up to where the tunnel ends and then seal around the duct where it goes outside. By doing so you will again safe on energy and mold risk due to avoiding having an ice-cold channel running through your ceiling/below the kitchen floor 😉
If that's 10" osb ijoist, then I probably would have just run 6" pvc ducting pipe from the outside to the furnace. The only real jerry rig would be bringing up the pex so the pipe can travel underneath. Put some insulation around the pex and around the ducting at the entrance to the house. That takes care of the cold floor problem too.
Inspiring me to work on my house more THANKS A LOT, (sarcasm) after I already painted sheetrocked, fixed the yard and ....... Jerry rig the Jerry rig until your name is not Jerry it’s Zach lol!
You could have detected the metal studs using a magnet, then cut the drywall square with a multitool. You would have had a drywall "door" that you could have just took off, and then put it in again, with only minor repairs to the mud.
This is incorrect. The drywall would be screwed to the studs in many places for that big of a hole. no way you are getting it out without damaging it since you'd have to tear it off the screws to remove it
natural gas is still liquid when it's under pressure - and as such, it can freeze... maybe not at 32F, (propane freezes @ -42F) but insulating that length of pipe would've been a good idea... although your PEX pipes aren't directly in the cold air, the duct itself can conduct cold air to anything touching it (in your case, your pipes)...
Finally he remembered the password of his second channel
Haha
😂
Lol
Lol
I KNOW RIGHT??? lol
"If we jerryrig their jerryrig with a slightly better jerryring then we should come out on top"
I saw your comment exactly when he said that
I'm stealing it, hopefully I'll run into a situation created by some Jerryrigger somewhere. It'll be my lightbulb moment..lol
What if the dude who did the remodel was named Jerry...
The Jerryrig cancels out and it returns to normal.
Team Fortress 2 Engineer lines that were removed from the game
So there's a vent right under your floor, with little to no insulation to your floor with HOT AND COLD water lines running across it... America never fails to amaze me.
Was thinking the same. /Swede
@@ajbp95 and then they go and Artex the ceiling like it's 1986 😂 (it still is 1986 is large parts of America)
according to code, that ain't supposed to be that way but Americans are more about rebellion than some other countries as their inception proves haha
@@TheDanielShepherd I'm assuming you're from the UK? Are most new ceilings just flat? What material is used?
@@TheArtificiallyIntelligent Yes - they're just skimmed perfectly flat with plaster and then painted.
Too late now, but I might have thought about putting some 1-2" styrofoam insulation inside that air intake along the floor to maybe help your kitchen floor not have a cold spot.
It looks like that duct matches the joist bay dimensions exactly... because why not? What knucklehead did that I wonder?
Edit: actually on closer review it looks like the "duct" is just the joist bay with sheet metal on the bottom...
@@zannanger8147 Welcome to 80s construction, would you like cardboard sheathing?
Zack works, talk and record at the same time, while in a step, what a man
dont hold back on uploading these kinds of videos, they're fun!
Good thing it's PEX, that made your job a lot easier. Kind of crazy that they'd drill right through an air intake like that though. Normally high efficiency heaters use PVC pipes for air intakes and exhaust.
I've also never seen a finished basement insulated from the rest of the house. Unless it's one heated from a separate heating system like a radiant floor heater.
oh i hate knocking down dry walls. It always left the place dusty for months. Even we cleaned up after the job, every few days, we could still see a very thin layer on furniture, especially dark color furniture.
0:33 My thought as a German: Of course pipes freeze - behind cardboard walls...
How you are doing fellow German
@@MrBlackFiction Doing fine, How about you?
Another fellow german here
I‘m still of the impression that solid brick construction is better 😂
Ja hatte genau denselben Gedanken
The only guy that doesn't need any mechanic to repair anything for him, he does everything, if your kids becomes like you, and your grand kids, it's gonna be a perfect family to can survive everywhere 👍🏾
The way american houses are constructed is hilarious.😂
Norwegian houses isn't simular at all
@@AArZAAA No, they are not
@@HorizonFarming oh how?
@@charliemccloskey8358 Basically everything. Houses in Norway are tougher, they never blow away, the dont rott in at least 40 years and they are better insulater, to handle the extreme cold. And the plumbing will never leak. It is a system called "Rør-i-Rør", if there's ever a leak, the water will just run out to a drain, and not inside thd wall.
@@HorizonFarming I’m in Canada (-30 in the winter) and mine seems more like his 😂
Careful running pipes that close to ceiling. They could be easily punctured by drywall screws. They make nail plates when pipes and wires are close to walls.
Pet is fairly burst resistant
Who is going to put ANYTHING in there ceiling... like I've never seen any screws in a ceiling
@@ipant1056 this things are like thing they regulate so they dont happen. Even when the chances are .00001% of you puting a scre trought that specific part
I think he would take note of where the pipes are before they screw the gyprock in
For someone living in a colder climate, cutting corners on a remodel like this is absolutely ridiculous. About a foot's length of pipe in my parents house runs uninsulated but behind a thick leca block wall, and that freezes at very low temperatures (~0 F), and that was considered a big mistake here.
You didn't need to use that fancy drill, just some No More Nails adhesive as the patch is not structural.
Jerry also didn't mix and thin the mud, never use ready mix mud direct from the bucket except to pre-fill panel gaps.
I can relate, I'm rebuilding my future house right now, no heating installed, living 3 hour away and watching the weather forecast hoping it won't get below zero inside the house.
I actually like these better than the phone ones. Inspiring to those wanting to fix stuff themselves but have no idea of the process.
New video after almost 5 months 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Those clamps work really good. They are what I used in my house when I built it. What I did was ran all of my pipes in the attic and there’s no brakes in the pipe only a beginning and a end. No leaks.
we have a seasonal cottage that was once all copper line. when it wasn't drained properly in the fall, we always had burst copper lines in the spring when we opened it up for the season.
Replaced everything with pex and never had an issue. It will freeze, but expands enough to not burst.
Dont forget to clean the cieling fan blades on the top side.
You should isolate the duct so the kitchen floor temp is the same everywhere
His eyes when the water started falling:
👀😦
Love it 😂
As a general contractor watching this is hilarious
You did an ok job. I don’t know the codes in your area but be careful when it comes time to resell your house. Since you showed us how you did your “magic trick” repair plumbing job.
Great job Zack and Riley. Hope to hear an update with good news in the spring.
Have you considered converting to a higher efficiency furnace and just sealing off the envelope of the home? Not only is it easier for the furnace in terms of rust but it spares you the wet filters if it rains and you have it on.
Hot tip, when turning your water on, do it even slower than you are. It prevents a sudden rush of pressure, which is bad for the fixtures, and usually whatever faucet is closest to the valve takes a real pounding and can ruin it.
It deep froze in Texas earlier this year. It wasn't the PEX that failed but the actual couplings that don't expand when frozen.
The face, when the water spilled out of the blue pipe, was hilarious.
really like these "other kind" of videos you are doing, like this and the garden
Why didn't you install a proper furnace air intake? This way your cold spot in the floor would be fixed too??
that wouldn't be much of a JerryRig at that point
Great video. The only suggestion I have is that you did a cut-erooski when you should have done a cut-eroni @ 4:08.
I would have just given the pipes a sweater and called it fixed
This is the true jerryrig way.
More videos like this please. Like...a couple thousand percent more videos like this.
You can get a 90deg tool that can be use for tight access areas, it has 10mm chuck so you can drill, drive, sand etc
That design you have fails at speed and has limit torque so be careful , thanks for the video from Wales 🏴 in the Uk
I've never seen that type of vent for a furnace. Is this the combustion air the furnace is pulling in?
Nothing more exciting than finding a solution to a problem.
dang, they joy of owning a house. So much fun to find all the little surprises lol.
2:36 my brain can’t handle it
jerryrig
Lol. The man with multiple talents
Jerryrig their Jerryrig really got me 😁
Zack is the type of guy who throws away the instruction manual
The main thing is wife approval, because happy wife happy life, you did a great job of fixing the situation, I have my older brother and his family living in Salt Lake City, beautiful place 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘🦘🦘But sending the love from Melbourne Australia, stay safe guys
If you have frozen pipes again, they sell pipe insulation wrap that you can plug into an outlet and it turns on when it detects a temp below freezing and it keeps the pipe just warm enough to the water inside doesn't freeze.
Yo there's this guy that runs this channel called jerryrigeverything and he looks and sounds just like you.
WHAT?!
@@JerryRigEverything wait, yall should do a colab together, that would be AMAZING 🤣
@@JerryRigEverything might be your long loss brother he look just exactly like you! 🤣
Must be a clone
Hey, I thought that 😂😂😉
For future reference you can use a nap paint roller to get that same texture in your mud. Just dip the roller into the mud (preferably a large 5 gallon bucket) and spread it on. Works a lot faster. Then you could knock it down as needed to match your ceiling.
Wow I can't believe they just drilled holes through all that venting -- gas line included. Incredible.
That isn't a proper, to code vent. I can't believe they tried to pretend a typical joist space could be used as a combustion air intake.
Primer before the texture! it helps it dry uniformly so you don't see the joint lines. Also you should have wrapped the cold line in contact with that metal duct. It might not be affected at 32, but it still might at 10.
Great video! I'm going to be working with PEX for the first time as well this week for a basement laundry room remodel.
First video on this channel of 2021 awesome! Well done!
Might want to recheck the pipes for leaks in the summer, since metal expands from heat.
I'm not sure if this is the same in US-houses, but where I live this wrap between the wood and the free space, where you put the pink stuff in, should be airtight. so the condensation stays outside the wood and will not rotten long term.
7:31 Those oscillating saws are awesome to have around.
Such beautiful house! In Turkey we usually live in apartments which hosts dozens of people under same roof. And there is a very very big noise pollution problem which we can't solve.
Just when. You think the Damage wasn't enough. He destroys more celings for more jerryriging!! I approve
In Finland we use defrost cables on waterlines witch tend to freeze. And of course we use insulation inside our walls
Quick suggestion , for a added freeze protection, at the area inside of the ductwork now above the lines. How about lining that area with a foam kitchen floor mat . Pre-cut and Pre-sprayed with 3m adhesive. Put it above your pipes like a sticker inside of your vent. Application is probably going to go down like putting a pizza in a oven with a or.
Boom I just G.R your fix....
You're an awesome guy jerry you do good Diy Stuff and you explain stuff In details keep it up Hope U reach 1M
Wish we had crimping in the UK. Closest we have is JG pushfit. Good but not as simple as these. But then I wonder how reversible crimping is.
Jerry, for texturing, using a medium texture paint is the quickest option for you instead of working on the putty...
Well, that solution doesn't really meet plumbing codes. Heaven forbid someone ever tries to put a screw or hanger into that ceiling.
Well I was just trying to put up a hanging plant and it seems that it's a self-watering system..... Jerry
Not saying it meets code, but if you're trying to hang something from your ceiling, you probably shouldn't just stab your drywall blindly? I'd be searching for a joist so I don't have to worry about the hook pulling out of the drywall!
im only 1:04 in but do u have the furnace in the crawl? or is intake only in crawl besides that idk why they would put ur pex without insulation under ur house where its going to get cold, sorry was just curious learning the Hvac trade been in for 3 years ish from 10 grade and im out of high school full time atm ... edit I forgot about ur basement
I know I'm late to the party but you might want to consider putting metal to block nails & screws from hitting the pipes. I'm not a plumber so I don't know code for that but I have watched a few remodel TV shows & if waterpipes are close enough to worry about screws or nails you put some metal in to protect it.
4:27 when you realise you had an assignment due but its 1 minute past the due date.....
Here's a handy tip for mixing mud in the future, add a little dish soap! Will give amazing results!
4:25 the look on your face is priceless!
For anyone wondering, the process of this particular drywall finsh is called skip troweling. It's better and cleaner than textured ceiling finish
25 yr construction drywall knowledge
As a contractor, this pained me. I really hate textured ceilings. And also more than improper plumbing. Jk. Thats worse. But no. Take down the entire ceiling and make it smooth. Please
It would honestly be better if he just put in drop ceilings in the basement, I would save quite a bit of time when trying to fixing plumbing leaks and any other issues that may pop up over the years. Also as someone familiar with plumbing this is just a homeowner fix, normally you would run a copper pipe to the sink but that takes time to put together and requires the experience of sodering aswell. Everything he did is a temporary fix.
@@XAssassin_22 true story. When I bought my house it had the 70's 12"x12" fiberboard tiles with 1/4" plywood as a backing. I took it all down pretty much when I moved in, one because I hated it. Two because I had to do a complete rewire. Installed a drop ceiling because of this sort of thing. Easier to replace a tile or two, than patch a drywall ceiling.
You could just skim coat it instead of taking the whole celling down.
I like the knock down texture on ceiling and walls.
The worst is that there is no actual duct. There should be a proper insulated duct for the intake. If that was done, he wouldn't have to do such a sketchy reroute.
You can use pliers to squeeze the ring slightly to hold it in place before using the crimpers.
You should do more DIY videos for this channel. So nice...
Quarantine must have been hard on him, he's contracted hair follicles
U hve another channal on YT...
Glad 2 meet u again
its wierd that the pipes aren't insulated, here in Belgium they are
Ik wilde het zelfde zeggen. I was about to say the same thing.
In belgie kunnen ze er anders ook wat van, koud water naast cv leggen mag blijkbaar gewoon, dus als je koud water aanzet in de winter krijg je eerst warm water 😂
@@Numbeermit da's bijzaak, da was bij ons thuis ook vroeger haha.. keb mij zo ies bijna verbrand
@@belgianbuilds6129 best erg, ik kom van Nederland en ben loodgieter. Als je dit in Nederland zou doen dan kan je jou bedrijf sluiten haha, maar hier in belgie kan dat gewoon
@@Numbeermit hier mag alles😂
just casually break the ceiling, no big deal
I’m assuming ‘mud’ is the same as plaster in the UK? 👍
I assume so. Although I've never seen plaster not being white
@@thanasisbethanis plaster is always a brown colour?
Amazing what people do without thinking it through. The house we live in now had two shoulder height shower heads (I’m 5’10”). 🧐
Next video..
Durability test on this pipe can it survive 🤔
that 90 degrees tool is very helpful, i have that same in work.. :D just from milwaukee.
yes the ice expands about 9% in volume, howeverits not the ice that breaks the pipe, its the pressure the ice creates that blows the pipe, which is why water blows out at the pressure it does and in the area ahead of where the pipe froze. open up your taps will allow that pressure out but your pipes may still freeze in the right condition, however usually the flow will be enough to prevent ice from completely freezing under normal weather conditions. Im actually repairing my blown pipes right now after a week of sub -40 weather with windchill reaching the mid fifties minus c.
Is this house made out of cardboard? 😁 it’s amazing to see that if you usually only deal with building made out of stone and brick 😁
Yo Zack! Those insulation have microplastics in them,
Please wear mask while rigging. Them
Thanks 😁
Pretty sure it's fibreglass which is worse for the lungs than microplastics
All we need is a jerryrigeverything in our house
Zack your lever valve for the water shutoff for your house should be plumbed in so that if the lever falls it should fall in the off position, good for safety.
4:26
Jerry be like: oh come on i don't want to mop the floor
1:15 I just shut off my water if I'm going for any length of time ...even in the summer then if a fitting breaks looose or something it's off anyways
Hey Zack! When I was watching your last video I saw a hummer vehicle . Is it yours? I also saw it in the video which the Tv’s.
2:37 my brain is slowly dying
If it was a solid run of steel pipe for the gas line through there, I wouldn’t be concerned. But that last view into the duct showed a few CSST fittings inside the duct…that’s a HUGE no-no. Absolutely NO gas connections should be made inside ductwork of any kind.
Your furnace draws in cold air from outside? Is this where your air filers are?
Jerryrig their jerryrig with a slightly better jerryrig 🙌🏾🙌🏾
One idea for improvement:
You can put an insulated duct into that tunnel from outside up to where the tunnel ends and then seal around the duct where it goes outside.
By doing so you will again safe on energy and mold risk due to avoiding having an ice-cold channel running through your ceiling/below the kitchen floor 😉
Awesome, great video. I didn't had to do this repair but it was very informative videos thanks alot Jerry you awesome.
If that's 10" osb ijoist, then I probably would have just run 6" pvc ducting pipe from the outside to the furnace. The only real jerry rig would be bringing up the pex so the pipe can travel underneath. Put some insulation around the pex and around the ducting at the entrance to the house. That takes care of the cold floor problem too.
Inspiring me to work on my house more THANKS A LOT, (sarcasm) after I already painted sheetrocked, fixed the yard and ....... Jerry rig the Jerry rig until your name is not Jerry it’s Zach lol!
So relatable, swiftly walking back into the room after turning the water back on. lmao...... I've done this countless times...
That mesh tape also acts like a skeleton to so the mud doesn’t crack that the joints
You could have detected the metal studs using a magnet, then cut the drywall square with a multitool. You would have had a drywall "door" that you could have just took off, and then put it in again, with only minor repairs to the mud.
This is incorrect. The drywall would be screwed to the studs in many places for that big of a hole. no way you are getting it out without damaging it since you'd have to tear it off the screws to remove it
I really respect the proactivity.
natural gas is still liquid when it's under pressure - and as such, it can freeze... maybe not at 32F, (propane freezes @ -42F) but insulating that length of pipe would've been a good idea... although your PEX pipes aren't directly in the cold air, the duct itself can conduct cold air to anything touching it (in your case, your pipes)...
I hear those referred to as "laser thermometers" too often. It's an infrared thermometer with a laser site.
"if we jerry rig their jerry rig with a slightly better jerry rig we'll be in good shape" lol literally how thousands of tradesmen think daily
How did you even find out about the original pipe condition at the first time? I would never have thought about it being run incorrectly.