Freezing pipes

[sandbrew]

This is way off the wall but I have to ask.



Anyone have any surefire cures for a freezing pipe?



It always seems like someone here knows some thing about everything or this has happened to someone here. My house is at 9750 feet above here in Colorado and my dang water line from the well freezes 3-4x per year. It just happened again New Years Day. Merry Christmas there goes $150 bucks to the pipethawer guy and no new toys for me. The problem is my water supply pipe was buried in the driveway and not very deep. This spring my brother and I dug the entire 200 feet up with backhoe and insulated it.

We found most of the pipe was buried 6-7 feet deep except for a 20 foot section that rises up to go over a rock ledge and is only 3-4 feet below the driveway. Any suggestions? Anyone know of any super strong heat tape that can be buried?



Thanks in advance.

Sandbrew

 

[15w40]

One trick I have used to keep my water pipe from freezing is to let a faucet drip (or trickle). Water coming from a well or a city system will never get below about 40*F, here in New England. By letting the water flow continually, it won’t freeze and may be cheaper than electricity to power the pipe heat tape.

 

[TPCDrafting]

My inlaws used to have a house that had a similar problem. Rather than a normal well head on top, they had the pump head, power inlet and water outlet down about 4' below grade. They had an insulated well house on top, but now and then it would freeze as well. (The house was also at 9000'+) Anyway he had this old arc welder with a really long cable, not sure if it was the ground or the busy end, but he'd hook one end on the water line at the well and the other on the water line where it came into the house. He'd turn it on real low power and it would thaw the line within a minute or so.

I don't know if you can get to both ends of the water line, but it worked real nice. I worried weather it was safe or not, but it worked anyway.

Just noticed your from Conifer. I grew up in Aspen Park, left in '89. It was a nice place to live.

 

[ETOBICOKE]

Pipe Heating

There is a type of pipe heater that goes inside the pipe made just for use with wells, it's just a small cable that is fished through the water line. Very common to use this for cottage water supplies here in Ontario where the piping is burried close to the surface.



http://www.heatline.com/



Neil

 

[Doc Tinker]

At $150 a pop, to get the line thawed, I'd be buying an arc welder to thaw it myself.



Doc

 

[Whitmore]

Sandbrew

The ultimate cure is to get the water line at the 7-8' depth, also the traffic from your vehicle will drive the frost line deeper, vehicle traffic can double the frost depth at times, I have seen frost around 10' before on a driveway and at that time the frost depth was only around 6' in other areas.

as far as thawing the line out yourself so it wont cost you money, get with your local Coca-cola or Pepsi dealer and get an empty premix tank, its 5 gallons, fill it with hot hot water from the neighbors house, then get a co2 bottle and regulator from him too and all the fittings, charge the hot water up to about 20 psi with the co2 bottle and off the hor water tank hookup some small tygone tubing so you can go internal your water line at a union or ball valve, keep feeding the tubing into the line as it thaws and it will push it out where you go in, this is an altyernative to the welder trick and much safer too, I have responded to a few house fires from welder thaw out tricks, if you do use the welder remember that the current will follow the path of least resistance and this may be your neighbors house :{ :-{}



Cheers, Kevin

 

[lmills]

Originally posted by tpcdrafting

Anyway he had this old arc welder with a really long cable, not sure if it was the ground or the busy end, but he'd hook one end on the water line at the well and the other on the water line where it came into the house. He'd turn it on real low power and it would thaw the line within a minute or so.

That just sounds down right scary! I hope nobody's holding onto anything metal in the house. :-laf

 

[bigkid59]

It might work or not in your application, but I have used 3/8" copper tubing to run a trace line alongside the pipe to protect it from freezing. We used this method to protect several hundred feet of exposed water piping in a building where I was Maintenance Manager.

The copper tubing was strapped to the water lines which were from 1" up to 6". then insulation was put over the lines. Whenever we expected freezing temperatures opening a couple of valves and starting a small pump would cause hot water to circulate through the copper lines. We had about 2 million btu's of boiler to draw from, but a water heater would work. It does not take a large amount of hot water to do this since the heat is well contained in the insulation. Just make sure to use enough insulation.

If the freezing is limited to a short distance from your house you could just run a loop to a point just past where you are having a problem. Rigging a thermostat to control the pump and valves would make for an automatic system that you could set and forget.

Having nothing electrical buried would make the system more trouble free than using heat trace tape.



Good Luck!

 

[Proram]

welder

Kinda sounds like the guy who try'd to Paint his car "eletrostaticly" used a welder hooked to Paint gun and grounded to car. worked untill he bumped car w/ gun.

BOOOOM!! and that was that. (Realy happened)



Proram

 

[illflem]

Cheapest way is to leave a facet trickling. It's better for your septic tank if the water drains elsewhere like a gray water line.



The way we used to do it when there was shallow bedrock and the pipe couldn't be deep was to remove the foot (check) valve from the pump and install one in the house by the pressure tank with an air release up stream from the indoor check.

When the pump shuts off the pipes drain back into the well even if the well is uphill from the house because the water level in the well is the lowest point.

At this point for you it would involve pulling the pump. Maybe next time.



Retro-Line is another alternative. You'll have to cut out a short section of the pipe somewhere after it enters your house and in another location past the shallow section of pipe. The Retro-Line comes in fixed lengths, it can't be cut or spliced so where you cut the line underground is rather important. You can then use a shop vac to suck high test fishing line with a small piece of plastic bag tied to the end though the pipe. Then use the fishing line to pull the Retro-Line though the pipe. Put the pipe back together, plug it in and you're set.



If you don't know how long the Retro-Line needs to be you can mark then pull the fishing line back out and measure it, put the pipe back together and order the correct length. Definitly a summertime job.

 

[jrobinson2]

Leaving the water trickling will work if the spot that freezes is after the pressure tank but may not work if the pressure tank is in the house, the water would stop flowing when the pump shuts off. illflem's suggestion is good if the tank is after the freeze point, also assuming you have a submersible and not a jet pump.



The welder thing is fairly common where I grew up.



Jared

 

[sandbrew]

Guys, thanks for all of the great suggestion. Keep them coming.



I know the high spot closest to the surface is the problem and I hoped insulating the line with 1 inch foam would have helped. The rock ledge is most likely transfering the cold deeper since I can see where the rock comes out of the ground along side the driveway. The pipe was laying right on the rock now its insulated but still right on it.



15w40,

In past years I dribbled water in a sink and that only worked if the dribble was a serious stream that cycled the well pump every 15 minutes or so. I also heard that much water can be real hard on a spetic system.



Last year I had a set up that sprayed water out of a heated hose to a spot on the side of the house. I built up a huge ice bank 25 feet high that didn't thaw until June. I sat down this spring and figured out I sprayed 150,000 gallons of water. Yes 150,000 gallons. It has been very dry in Colorado this year and I am worried about my well going dry so I decided to dig and insulate.



ETOBICOKE,

Thanks for the link to www.heatline.com it looks very promising. I also found a water line recirculator for Canada that has over 1000 units installed in Yellowknife NWT and a bunch in Alaska. If it works there it should work in Colorado



Doc Tinker,

I'd love to buy a welder but the thawer is a big ol son of a gun. The pipe thawer has a 300 amp truck mounted welder that he has specially set up that run continous amperage through water inline. He usually runs 175 to 200 amps for 45 minutes to an hour in order to thaw my pipe. This time it only took 25 minutes at 150-175 amp to get the job done.



Witmore,

I like the CO2 hot water idea. I run a microbrewery so kegs and CO2 are easy for me to find. I just don't think it will work for this problem. The line freezes solid 100 feet from the house and for a run of 20-30 feet. I've heard about house fires starting from using a welder to thaw this guy knows his stuff and we always disconect the ground. I think a neighbor would need to be on city water for it to be a problem.



Bigkid,

I like the trace line idea. I rebuilt the house myself and have a 120,000 BTU boiler for in floor hot water heat. I might be able to tap into that system. It would mean digging up the whole pipe again.



tpcdrafting,

If you left Aspen Park in 1989 you wouldn't recognize the area. 285 in four lanes up past the Safeway. Ther are NO stoplights anywhere. There are overpasses at Meyers Ranch, Aspen Park Post Office, The Loaf and Jug, Safeway and Kennedy Gluch/Foxton Road. I'm up on top of Conifer Mt next to the firestation if you know where that is.



Thanks guys



Sandbrew

 

[illflem]

Originally posted by sandbrew

I built up a huge ice bank 25 feet high that didn't thaw until June...

Read about a guy in Wisconsin who did the same thing but ran some 12" culvert though the bottom of the ice with a fan and used it to cool his house in the summer. Covered it with straw and a tarp, said it lasted till August.

 

[TURBOs4LIFE]

This is the heat cable that we use at work. The name brand is Delta Therm it 6 watts per foot and its not like the typical heat cable. Other types (like what Lowes or Home Depot sell) of heat cable, if one part goes out the whole cable does not work! The Delta Therm continues to work if a section goes bad. It is cut to desired lengths and you install a thermostat or plug it in directly to an outlet.

 

[Philip]

Now don't laugh this does work.



If you have an old car battery and a battery charger. Hook the positive cable of the battery charger to the positive on the battery. Hook the ground of the battery to the pipe. Then run a wire from the other end of the pipe where you can get to it. To the negative terminal of the charger. Turn it on high and leave it. It might take a few hours to thaw it out. But it will do it. Then set the charger on a time to turn on and run at preset interviles.





If you are hooked up good on connections. It will show a charge on the battery charger gauge.



This will not burn out pipes if left on. Your only looking at 20 or so amps max. With the battery in the loop it will shut the charger down if it reaches a full charge to.