Frozen Pipes

pkitfox said:

Many of you live in areas of the country that get really cold. The ducting of an operating forced air furnace would keep pipes in the crawl space warmer, I think. Are there any steps you take because of the type of heating you use, to keep pipes from freezing? I know years ago we hit close to -20, and if I remember right, some people around here had frozen pipes.

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Yep... froze my pipes. I have a remote thermometer in the basement and there is a SIGNIFICANT temperature different down there on the few occasions I have run the furnace. That is running it for short periods of time too - imagine how much heat has been lost over past seasons. I ended up buying some of that pipe heating wire and wrapping the pipe where it comes into the house. That worked down to -20 - the coldest it has been yet. It took temps that cold to freeze the pipes though. Right now, I am hovering in the freezing range with 12 degree temps outside, 70 degrees inside, 34 in the basement. I have some ideas on shunting some heat down there, but I am not going to bother this season. We'll see what happens on Monday with 20+ below predicted. Even at -10 to -20, the coldest the basement got was 29 degrees.

--- scott

I have a remote thermometer under my house that I can glance at to tell me what the current temperature is. I think the lowest we've seen is 40° when the outside temp was right at 0°. If it gets near freezing then I'll stick a small electric heater under there to warm it up some.

Steve

Ialso use a remote thermometer ..comes in real handy..
lets me know even on the coldest of days(-20's)that my cellar stays around 33 at floor level but since we have an oil furnance also I disconnected the one duct to the dining room and closed off the other dampers to the rest of the house and just run the heat till the cellar is in the mid to high 40's and it won't cool down for quite a long time..
not bad considering the house has a 115yr old foundation made of fieldstones....

Our home is a double wide with no cellar. basically, a triler. We leave the water trickle at the farthest points in the house (both bathrooms tubs). Had -9 a couple times and things were ok. You have to check on the drips now and then to make sure that when the pump pressure is down water is still running.

My home has a crawl space that had air leaks.
When the stove was installed last year
the "oak" was installed thru the floor into the crawl space.
The first very bad cold spell the pipes froze. I added flex tubing to the
"oak", sealed up most of the holes and from then on no problems.
Last week it went down to -18 and the pipes did not freeze.
In the back of my mind I remember someone telling me so long
as there is no draft running around the pipes the normal use
of water will keep it from freezing.

i use a Thermguard, I set it to cycle hot water threw my first zone every 3 hours for 2 minutes at a time, or as needed.

http://www.bearmountaindesign.com/

We have the thermostat for the furnace in our bedroom and we sleep with door closed. The t-stat is set at 64, so the furnace kicks on during the coldest nights, preventing the pipes from freezing. Forgot to mention, we have a duct in the cellar, which is why it warms up. Previous years we set the thermostat to 54, but this allowed a pipe to freeze.

I have a crawlspace also and get concerned about the pipes. I currently have heating ducts broke loose down there and monitor the temp with remote thermometers. I'd like to find a better way than heating this area with gas during extreme cold as I feel I'm wasting energy and money. I thought of the idea of a ceramic heater (a little skitish about exposed electric coils down there) with an inline thermostat. One question I have is how low will the thermostat dial down to before kicking on? Any thoughts on this idea?

HarmanP68 said:

Ialso use a remote thermometer ..comes in real handy..
lets me know even on the coldest of days(-20's)that my cellar stays around 33 at floor level but since we have an oil furnance also I disconnected the one duct to the dining room and closed off the other dampers to the rest of the house and just run the heat till the cellar is in the mid to high 40's and it won't cool down for quite a long time..
not bad considering the house has a 115yr old foundation made of fieldstones....

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i do the same had -15 and still 44 in the craw space i have a duct and cold air return

They make different and better and worse heat tapes. The better ones are thermostatically regulated and when insulated properly will definitely do the trick. Go ask what they have at a decent plumbing supply. Watch out for the ones that are high power if you put them on a plastic line as they can melt right through it if the line goes empty ( done that myself, not pretty). The one I replaced it with is still under my old trailer many years later wrapped in both taped foam and fiberglass wrap. It hit -42F one night and never froze in spite of being under a trailer. It is a lot nicer to spend the $$ and get one that turns itself on and off and does the job than it is sitting in a cold place waiting for a heater to thaw out your pipe to thaw.

freebird77 said:

Our home is a double wide with no cellar. basically, a triler. We leave the water trickle at the farthest points in the house (both bathrooms tubs). Had -9 a couple times and things were ok. You have to check on the drips now and then to make sure that when the pump pressure is down water is still running.

Click to expand...

I also have a manufactured home. I would like to think of mine as such, not a trailer! I turn on the circulating fan on the furnace, this distributes the heat very well and I use no gas, only have it for back up. I have never frozen! :coolsmile: You really should not leave your water drip in a mobile home, this can cause your drain lines to freeze and that can make one heck of a mess! Although if your home has a block foundation you will be fine!

Another simple trick to keep pipes from freezing in an enclosed crawlspace is to put light bulbs under the house that you can turn on with a switch from upstairs. You'd be surprised how much heat they can put out.

Steve

We had an issue during the recent very cold snap. I was keeping the back bedroom downstairs closed to conserve heat. The pellet stove runs in the living room, keeping the downstairs (zone 1 of the furnace) at about 64 - 72 degrees, depending on time of day and distance from stove. With the back room door closed - it gets wicked cold back there.

Zone two (uupstairs) is heated with some of the rising pellet stove heat and the furnace on a thermostat of 60 degrees.

Zone one, the back room, I think, on the north side of the house seemed to get a little freeze up. I tried to run the furnace in zone one, but it kept stopping. So I cranked up the pellet stove to high and opened the door for the back room. Eventually that day, I got the furnace to run through zone one and that helped.

I think a circulator like bear mountain would help with this problem, but I'll just keep the back room door open instead for now. That's the easier method for now, so long as I don't mind the dog exploring that room, which we typically left closed for guests who might be sensitive to dog hair.


So, yes, cold pipes - frozen perhaps. Learned another lesson. When the pellet stove is on, open all the doors and don't give the pipes a chance to freeze.

knightjohannes said:

.....I think a circulator like bear mountain would help with this problem,....

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Yes, the ThermGuard from Bear Mountain is really the way to go. I bought one for my upstairs that doesn't get used often, and it works GREAT! Plus, you don't have to worry about opening your doors, etc, or forgetting to run the furnace once in a while, or what to do while away from home.....it does it for you automatically. For $62 bucks, I don't have to think about frozen pipes ever again.

Panhandler said:

I have a crawlspace also and get concerned about the pipes. I currently have heating ducts broke loose down there and monitor the temp with remote thermometers. I'd like to find a better way than heating this area with gas during extreme cold as I feel I'm wasting energy and money. I thought of the idea of a ceramic heater (a little skitish about exposed electric coils down there) with an inline thermostat. One question I have is how low will the thermostat dial down to before kicking on? Any thoughts on this idea?

Click to expand...

look up thermocube they make units that turn on and off at different temps, I have one that turns on at 35 and off at 45, it looks like a triple plug tap with the center plug missing. mine works great, it would work with a heater or incandescent lights on an extension cord. I got mine on amazon for $20

webby3650 said:

freebird77 said:

Our home is a double wide with no cellar. basically, a triler. We leave the water trickle at the farthest points in the house (both bathrooms tubs). Had -9 a couple times and things were ok. You have to check on the drips now and then to make sure that when the pump pressure is down water is still running.

Click to expand...

I also have a manufactured home. I would like to think of mine as such, not a trailer! I turn on the circulating fan on the furnace, this distributes the heat very well and I use no gas, only have it for back up. I have never frozen! :coolsmile: You really should not leave your water drip in a mobile home, this can cause your drain lines to freeze and that can make one heck of a mess! Although if your home has a block foundation you will be fine!

Click to expand...

Aw, don't worry guys give it a few years and you will start calling it a trailer too. Just make sure your hot water tank is sitting in one of those black plastic catch basins and the drain is connected outside or somewhere where you can monitor daily or you will soon be singin the trailer floor blues and get a 1st class education on how so little water can ruin such a large floor and what a pain it is to replace. If they only used cheap plywood instead of that horrid particleboard. The stuff is nothing but a giant slab wood pellet unfortunately. The other thing is plugging up the huge holes where the plumbing access comes in through the floor. They are usually big enough to let a cat come and go easily. One thing I will give them is how cheap they are to heat. You do have to keep the temp up some as the heat loss is what keeps everything warm enough below not to freeze. Strangely in the 24 years I have had mine and all the freezeups not one single leak from a broken plastic pipe.

Ive heared of there being a chance of freezing drains with lettting the water drip, but thank God never had it happen.

rowerwet said:

Panhandler said:

I have a crawlspace also and get concerned about the pipes. I currently have heating ducts broke loose down there and monitor the temp with remote thermometers. I'd like to find a better way than heating this area with gas during extreme cold as I feel I'm wasting energy and money. I thought of the idea of a ceramic heater (a little skitish about exposed electric coils down there) with an inline thermostat. One question I have is how low will the thermostat dial down to before kicking on? Any thoughts on this idea?

Click to expand...

look up thermocube they make units that turn on and off at different temps, I have one that turns on at 35 and off at 45, it looks like a triple plug tap with the center plug missing. mine works great, it would work with a heater or incandescent lights on an extension cord. I got mine on amazon for $20

Click to expand...

Thanks, rowerwet, that looks to be exactly what I was looking for.