On Mon, 09 Dec 2013 16:42:16 -0800, wrote:

On Mon, 9 Dec 2013 15:45:57 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Monday, December 9, 2013 2:17:11 PM UTC-5, Larry Jaques wrote:


I woke up to some fun this morning. -=No water=- The pump pressure

is up but the lines are frozen. I put a heater in the pump house (the

light had burned out, allowing the freeze?) an hour ago but no joy

yet. I'll put it in the crawlspace in a few minutes and see if that

does it. sigh



It has been 10 or 11F here two days in a row. The lowest I've seen

here before is 17F, and my outside line burst 8 years ago. I have

insulated the exterior pipes and shut them off for the winter now, so

this is the first problem I've had, and the first time losing water.

There's a shutoff valve for each inside and outside lines.



Crap!



Been there and done that. Not fun. If the pipes are metal , you can hook an Ac welder to the pipe with one connection to each side of the frozen section. Put the welder on the lowest current and turn it on. The current thru the pipe will heat the pipe enough to allow a trickle of water . And the trickle of water will melt more of the ice in the pipe.

A good long term solution is heat cable made by Raychem. It is a cable that does not draw much current when warm and more when cold. Look on the internet for better write up.

Dan
I have heat tape on some of my pipes at the pressure tank. The tape
has a thermostat so it stays off until the temp drops low enough. Much
better tyhan a light bulb. More of a hassle to wrap the pipes. There's
something queer going on in my shop walls though. The building is
steel, sorta like a quonset hut. In the bathroom are steel studs with
drywall attached. The pipes to the sink and toilet run through the
steel studs. I did the plumbing and then insulated the plumbing before
putting up the drywall. Yet the pipes have frozen in the walls a few
times when the shop got really cold. My wife said that maybe rats or
mice got in the walls and shifted some insulation. I'll bet that's it.

A few inches of fluff around a pipe isn't enough to keep it from
freezing after days of sub-freezing weather. Drill a few holes (or
cut some slots widthwise along the wall and remove the sections) so
you can pump some nice Polyurinestain(tm) foam around them. It has
about 3-5x the insulative value of fiberglass or rockwool. also make
sure that none of the pipes actually touch the metal studs. They
would provide heatsinks/chillsinks(?) to the water.

Running a thermostat on my plumbing might be dicey, as my well water
runs about 40F most of the year. I'll have to check out the
possibilities, though. Days like today Suck.

UPDATE:
Hurrah! I now have running cold water in the main bathroom sink,
toilet, and tub. The kitchen sink drips cold water on occasion, but
all hot water is still frozen. It has the longest run, unfortunately.
I sure wish I had an instant-on water heater in the bathroom right
now. I'll be quite -ripe- before the week is out... Time for a GI
spongebath, ah reckon.

--
I hate being bipolar ....... It's awesome!