On Oct 24, 12:36 pm, woodworker88 wrote:
On Oct 24, 3:34 am, "Karl Townsend"
wrote:

I need to set up a quick and easy way to protect a dishwasher, a clothes
washer and a water softener from freezing...

My first plan is to solder a Tee and two valves in the water line near each
unit. Switch valves so that an air hose can pressure blow unit out. (I'll be
doing this through out the water system to blow all water lines out) Or, do
I need to get more fancy and figure some way to pump RV antifreeze in?
Anybody got an idea on a quick easy way to pump a couple quarts in?

Karl

I just went through this drill with the irrigation system at our
cabin. The house is well insulated and the furnace is setup with an
emergency freeze protection to keep the inside of the house at 35
degrees (only kicked on twice last winter) so we just drain (no air or
antifreeze) those pipes. However, the irrigation system and the shop
are another story. I put antifreeze in the trap of my unheated shop
sink, and we drain the irrigation system. However, poor design means
that the irrigation system still has several gallons even after being
completely gravity drained. I learned this when one well insulated,
supposedly drained pipe froze and split open 5 places along a 10'
length of pipe. There is a spigot at one end of the pipe and a ball
valve/drain at the other. I just permanently attached a quick connect
airline fitting, hook up my compressor, and open the valve. This
time, even after completely draining the pipe, 3 more gallons blew out
of the line. Now it's truly empty. The main concern is potential
damage from high pressure. A solid copper pipe is very different from
pumps, valves, etc in an appliance.
ww88

Quite common practice here is to blow out lawn sprinkler systems for
the winter about this time of year. Kind of odd driving by a big lawn
and seeing what looks like high-pressure steam popping out of the
ground everywhere. Most end up calling a service outfit to do it,
not having either the fitting or the compressor to do it. They never
plant the things more than a foot down and everything is PVC, it
breaks very easily.


Stan