Gettin' cold....watch for frozen pipes

[bridgerman]

Hi Gang,

-20F here in Montana this morning. I am a wood stove burner and a number of years ago, I had my heating pipes burst because I was working through a nice pile of firewood. The thermostat never called for heat and the water in the pipes just sat there. After time, the water froze and eventually the pipes burst and poured out water until my well was drained.

It ruined my finished basement and cost a lot to repair.

Make sure you run some water periodically through your heating pipes as this cold weather system drops to your neck of the woods. You don't want the expense or hassle of home repairs especially in the middle of winter!

Stay warm!
John

 

[Robert C.]

I was thinking about that recently. Since I no longer kick my boiler on, since I don't have to, do you think it's a good idea just to partially drain the water and not worry about it?

 

[bridgerman]

I was thinking about that recently. Since I no longer kick my boiler on, since I don't have to, do you think it's a good idea just to partially drain the water and not worry about it?

I have never been a fan of partially draining anything. The water always find the low spots so the freeze issue is still there. I figured that out the hard way. I was blowing out the water in my RV but going from the outside low point and blowing compressed air out the faucets. Blowing water uphill....not thorough enough. Water settled into the low spots when I stopped the compressed air and I had to re-plumb the RV the next spring...live and learn!

Try the ThermGuard. It will cycle the water for you. You'll never have to remember to do it again. It attaches to your thermostat and it is just like you turn on the zone for a few minutes every few hours. Peace of mind!

Cheers,
John

 

[Robert C.]

I dunno... my goal is not to burn any oil if I can help it. If this thing cycles it every few hours, then I'm wasting a whole lot of oil...

 

[Highbeam]

Absolutely do not drain the system if it defeats your sole backup heat source. If it is cold enough to blow up your inside heating pipes then you need that system around for a backup in the event that you are unable to burn for some reason. Maybe you accidently break the stove glass, maybe some idiot steals your wood, maybe you have a chimney fire, maybe you get sick, you want to be able to stay warm. Keep the backup.

 

[firebroad]

Good advice.
May I suggest heat tape?

 

[bridgerman]

There are folks out there who use a separate relay to disable the boiler when a ThermGuard is running. I have attached a drawing of how to do just that. Less than $20 in parts (outside of the ThermGuard).

This way, no dinosaurs are harmed in the prevention of frozen pipes

John

 

[bridgerman]

Good advice.
May I suggest heat tape?

Heat tape is a great way to keeps those pipes from freezing if you have access to them. Plug it when when needed or attach a thermostatically controlled switch. The key is access. My pipes were in a drywalled area unfortunately :-(

John

 

[firebroad]

Heat tape is a great way to keeps those pipes from freezing if you have access to them. Plug it when when needed or attach a thermostatically controlled switch. The key is access. My pipes were in a drywalled area unfortunately :-(

John

Bummer!
Shame you can't snake some up there, but I don't think it would help in Montana.

 

[bridgerman]

I'm lucky...only -20F here in Bozeman. The weather channel had -28F in Butte a couple of nights ago.

We don't count wind chill in Montana. If it is that cold, a few extra negative degrees because the wind is blowing hardly matters. Just be smart about the whole thing

 

[Seasoned Oak]

I dunno... my goal is not to burn any oil if I can help it. If this thing cycles it every few hours, then I'm wasting a whole lot of oil...

Would take very little oil to warm up the pipes every so many hours. Way less expense than repairs.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Good advice.
May I suggest heat tape?

Lots of times pipes go thru walls and crawl spaces. It usually not practical to heat tape the entire network of pipes.

 

[Rock Crusher]

Plus, heat tape can short out and start insulation on fire/or other combustibles. If you still use oil for DHW, it will use little oil to cycle every so often as Seasoned Oak mentioned.

 

[DickRussell]

The susceptibility of a house's heating system plumbing to freezing when not in use because the woodstove is the primary heat is very dependent on the house itself and how the plumbing is run. For a new house in a cold climate, the rule to follow would be never let the plumbing be exposed to the outside air. That means never run plumbing in outside walls, and air seal the shell carefully so you never have a stream of cold air finding its way through a cavity and across a pipe. A pipe can't freeze if it sees only inside room temperature air. In those rare cases where a pipe must be run in an exterior wall, be sure there always is a lot more insulation to the outside of the pipe's location than there is to the inside, and that there are no air leaks into the cavity.

However, good design for a new house doesn't address freezing pipe issues in an existing house. Still, a careful review of where the pipes do run can lead to steps that can be taken to address only the problem areas instead of using a broad-brush approach to protecting everything. Pipes run in the ceiling of a garage with a bonus room over it would be one such problem area. It's possible those pipes see a lot of air leakage, and that cavity between garage and room above possibly isn't even insulated. Opening up the ceiling and applying heat tape with insulation around that and the pipe could be done. The ceiling at the perimeter could be opened up and the rim joist/sill area spray foamed if there the problem is deemed to be just air leakage. Other problem areas in the house might be addressed individually as well.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

In this kind of weather you may need to run BOTH heat sources to stay warm.If possible.[/quote]

 

[jdonna]

Good post. I always worry about the freezing pipe issue. I was in my basement with the thermometer checking pipe temps to make sure they will not freeze. I have pipes that run along stone and foundation. Even though they are inside and not buried in a wall cavity, not running heat and air leaks in the building envelope can lead to a partial or total freeze in long stretch of cold weather.

 

[ewdudley]

Zones can be heated, off, or on freeze protection cycle, as selected by row of toggle switches at bottom.

Timer activates freeze protection zones every so often according to timer wheel program.

--ewd

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Get yourself some of those small digital temp gauges. About $6 from walmart. I place them in cold spots at an empty house im heating (oil heat) to 45Deg. (thats as low as the therm will go) SO far no one place was more than 5 deg lower than the tstat setting. Iv got cast iron radiators in there and if they freeze and crack it will be a giant mess and expense.

 

[begreen]

Good reminder bridgerman. Folks should not hate the thermostat. If you don't have automatic freeze protection at least run the furnace or boiler once a day for 30 minutes during extreme cold. Or put an electric heater in the basement set to a low temp. It's cheap insurance.

 

[bridgerman]

Zones can be heated, off, or on freeze protection cycle, as selected by row of toggle switches at bottom.

Timer activates freeze protection zones every so often according to timer wheel program.

--ewd

View attachment 119628

Wow! How many zones are you controlling? It looks like a lot!

 

[ewdudley]

Wow! How many zones are you controlling? It looks like a lot!

Lessee, office, 4 bed, 2 living, 2 bath, kitchen&dining, yep that's ten. Kicker is that it's just the two of us except for holidays and other guests, so it's nice to seal off most all of the house and hunker down in the living and bedroom, during the week at least.

 

[bridgerman]

Lessee, office, 4 bed, 2 living, 2 bath, kitchen&dining, yep that's ten. Kicker is that it's just the two of us except for holidays and other guests, so it's nice to seal off most all of the house and hunker down in the living and bedroom, during the week at least.

Zoinks....Your plumber must have retired after that job.

 

[danham]

You can also run antifreeze in the heating system. This is what I do in a rental property I own which is basically shut down for the winter. But there is a significant tradeoff: the antifreeze will speed up deterioration and corrosion of the zone valves. For me the tradeoff is worth it, especially given the area's frequent winer power outages. I've only had to replace a few valves prematurely (say 5 years instead of 10 or more), but it is something to consider carefully before adding antifreeze.

-dan

 

[BCC_Burner]

Have the cold water line to my kitchen sink frozen at the moment. All the other water in the house runs just fine. Have the heat cranked in the crawl space where the issue lies, but for whatever reason that cold water line runs right up against the exterior of the crawl space for a couple of feet. Should have been better prepared, but I was assured that there had "never" been an instance of the pipes freezing before.

The warmest it has been in the last 72 hours at my place is -2F, coldest was -18F. The stove is keeping the house plenty warm, but that damn pipe might not thaw for a week.

 

[firebroad]

I guess I should really consider myself lucky, we used to get sub zero cold snaps in the past that went on for weeks, don't seem to get them much since the 90's. My kitchen sink would freeze too, but I just kept a slow trickle overnight to prevent it.