How do you keep your water pipes from freezing?.

[Greg123]

Well I have been burning 24/7 which is keeping my first floor nice and warm, but with this brutal cold my basement is suffering from all the cold weather, this morning the thermometer read 41 degrees.

The basement is well insulated so I don’t think it will get below freezing but I’m keeping a watchful eye on it in case my water pipes freeze. I have already insulated all the water pipes. If it does get to the freezing point the only option I can think of is turning on the furnace (cringing at the thought) to get some heat down there or buying on of those water pipe heating cables.

Just curious to know what other people that burn 24/7 are doing to prevent there water pipes from freezing, If there stoves are not located in there basements.

 

[Rhone]

You setup should include isolating valves to your basement zone. Close them, and drain the water out of your basement system. That's what I did. You may not want to if you don't know how to put water back into the system properly, you have to purge the air out and know what pressure to charge the system to. Your heating system usually has lower pressure than city pressures. Otherwise, you can charge it with glycol but you have to isolate the system to prevent contamination of city/well water. Also, Glycol makes the water thinner and may leak where before it hadn't.

 

[Andre B.]

Well I have been burning 24/7 which is keeping my first floor nice and warm, but with this brutal cold my basement is suffering from all the cold weather, this morning the thermometer read 41 degrees.

The basement is well insulated so I don’t think it will get below freezing but I’m keeping a watchful eye on it in case my water pipes freeze. I have already insulated all the water pipes. If it does get to the freezing point the only option I can think of is turning on the furnace (cringing at the thought) to get some heat down there or buying on of those water pipe heating cables.

Just curious to know what other people that burn 24/7 are doing to prevent there water pipes from freezing, If there stoves are not located in there basements.

If it is well insulated 1 or 2 100 watt light bulbs left on will do wonders.

For small amounts of heat in targeted areas it is hard to beat electricity.

 

[wg_bent]

Just turn on the heat for 2 minutes per day. Will keep heated water moving. That's what I do.

 

[Roospike]

Pipe wrap insulation and electrical freeze tape. Done.

 

[colsmith]

Rhonemas, not sure what you are talking about exactly, but in our house, ALL the water comes in through the basement, so there is no turning it off unless you don't want to have running water in the house. Now that it is so darn cold, we run the furnace a little bit, and have opened one of the ducts in the basement so that it gets a little heat. The water coming in the house is at the far end of the basement from the furnace.

 

[restorer]

Greg:
Even if you need to run your furnace, it will be a lot cheaper than paying for the service call to unfreeze your pipes. If your basement's well insulated and has retained heat to 41*, a little supplemental heat will do wonders. I like the small ceramic heaters with an infinitely adjustable blower. I use one in the shop when it goes below Zero to protect the water line and toilet. May cost a few pennies a day. Set to about 200 watts will raise the temp by 30 degrees in the bath. I don't have direct heat there.

My neighbor has the same situation and he simply uses a circulation fan. He claims moving the air with a single light on does fine.

 

[Gunner]

Greg, we are less that 1 hour from each other and have a similar setup-stove on main floor insulated full basement(currently unfinished)

I just checked my basement is 52F
outside is 5F
main floor with stove 72F

I have noticed that if I leave the door to my basement open I can feel heat coming down the stairs... Any heat that wants to go upstairs has to pass by the doorway to the basement and it the door is open some of it will leak downstairs even tho it's not "supposed" to. That may work for you, may not.

Another thing that I have noticed since my basement is unfinished and all my ductwork is not wrapped, when I run my furnace fan only it tends to warm up the basement a few degrees while cooling the 2 upper floors. I have 6 registers in the basement and all my returns are at ceiling level one being 10ft from my stove.

If that doesn't work for you I'd run a small electric heater on the days that it is really cold.

Cheers

 

[Corey]

I have a similar set up - full basement, stove on the main level. But I guess I luck out - the basement stays at least 50F even with no direct heat. Plus, as of this summer - with the completed renovation of the laundry room - all my water pipes have now been moved to interior walls, so that is a little extra bonus.

If you have pipes on the interior walls, I'd say you are probalby OK if 40F is the lowest you go. No risk of freezing at that temp. If your pipes are in the exterior walls, or exposed to uninsulated freezing space, you might start having trouble. One source of free heat which may or may not be available is using a clothes dryer. I built a small 16x20" wooden box and put a cheap HEPA furnace filter on it and vent the dryer into the box during winter. This puts heat and humidity back into the house, plus keeps cold air from being drawn in to replace the dryer exhaust. Works OK with electric, but not really an option with gas.

Corey

 

[buildingmaint]

My basement went down to 34 degrees on Saturday so I had to bit the bullet an fire up my vent less heater . Worked well got basement up to 43 degrees . Woke up this morning{Tuesday} to one frozen water pipe. It thawed out without a mess . I think there is a draft blowing on that pipe so I think it would of froze heat or no heat.I hate paying the gas company.

 

[burntime]

Run arround the basement franticly wondering if your pipes will freeze. That should generate some btus... Just kidding. Heck, run the furnace for a cycle or two. I still kick mine in every few days just to make sure all is well. I don't konw if its true but I was told that it needs to get below freezing to freeze water in pipes because it is under presure. Caveat emptor! My last gas bill was 36 bucks and I run gas for the stove, waterheater, dryer, and occationally the furnace. Good luck

 

[Roospike]

DONT SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON WAISTED HEAT FOR THE AIR.

Maybe I'm not clear on what electrical heat tape is or for some have never heard of it.

Heat tape is a wire heater that you wrap around your water pipes and plug in , you wrap your pipes with insulation after your wrap the heat tape on your pipes. There is a thermostat on the tape and turn on before freezing and turns off at the set temp. This option is easy and only heat the pipe and you dont have to spend a lot of money heating the air of a whole area.

Keeping pipes from freezing is what this is made for without doing a bunch of redneck kind of fixes and waisting energy.
Heat tape.

http://plumbing.hardwarestore.com/52-299-heat-tape.aspx

 

[babalu87]

If your talking about the FHW pipes, either you or a boiler tech can put anti-freeze into the system, no worries after that.

It is NOT the same as a car/truck

 

[GVA]

This usually works for me... ;-P

Best bet would be at a minimum the heat tape though, and seal up the drafts.....
Last year I went to my basement for a bag o' pellets and saw a snowdrift inside......... It was a goodway of finding a leak in the foundation...... Alright the pics posted backwards but ohhhhhhhhhh well..... I redid the foundation after this happened.....

 

[elkimmeg]

I have posted many times trying to make those aware of the dymanics of adding a stove to your heating system I set my thermo state at a range between 64 and 67. It's ok to hear to hear the furnace come on occasionally. 30 years in this home and heating with wood I have been so sucessfull that I have frozen pipes numerous times

Forced hot water heating systems if the water sit long enough un circulated and many pipes are run in exterior walls eventually they will freeze. Homes with overhange and pipes a real problem. Finally listening at night hearing wild banging noises to the point the furnace and pipes sound angry. They are telling you freezing is happening the wild vibtations and banging happens when hot water encounter very cold water rapid ezpansion and contractions. Finally I was fed up getting up at night chasing down freeze ups I did the onlyt sure way to prevent it .
I charged all zones with PaNADOL type antifreeze Never worry about freezing again. One warning I use a litmus paper test strips to check the antifreeze consitancy every year to make sure I have protection. Over time antifreese is dissipated and water added to your zoned by a variable fill valve. so far 5 years and I still have enough protection.

Hot and cold water pipes during extreme cold T open up vanity and sink cabinet doors to allow a warmer heat air flow exposure. I also insulate all pipes near the foundation or outher cellar walls. The final step it ot crack the furtherest remote fawcet and let it drip both the hot and cold water. Running water will not freeze as quickly If you are having problems then time to
insulate some pipes and open some fawcets periodocially and to allow them to drip.

Heat tape also is a solution but if the pipes are that exposed that you can heat tape them then another approach is to eliminate the cold draft exposure and insulate the pipe.
Heat tape is a temporary solution when all else fails I would rather allow a little flow

 

[kevinlp]

For us the downstairs (Raised ranch) is a separate zone. We don't use it so I have the thermostat set at 54. Only have it on for the real cold weather. On the normal cold weather days it was dipping into the low fifties without the heat on. Our hydronic system has antifreeze in it.

 

[KateC]

Our basement is our laundry/shop area and also wood storage so we need to keep a certain amount of heat on anyway, so after the woodstove went in we moved the thermostat down there and keep it around 50-54 depending. It's warm enough for me to do projects, the pipes don't freeze, and the added heat upstairs with the stove going keeps me sweating in my underwear- We've used about half or less oil this year and for us it's working out perfect. Woodheat 24/7 is great during fall/spring but just not realistic for us when it's really cold. More insulation and a better wood supply next year should help alot, but I don't think we'll be completely giving up the furnace.

 

[cogger]

I have a older farmhouse and stone foundation. The newer hot/cold pipes where up away from the foundation to avoid drafts in crawl space in basement. Still when the temp outside dips past -15f I find it best to run the hot/cold water a few seconds every few hours to keep a flow going. If you want a good night sleep or work away from your home all day I suggest leaving it running and open doors under sink. Yes, running. Not full or partial but just past the dip point thinner than a pencil. So a few gallons are wasted but this is better than broken pipes which leads to a major inconvenience of no shower or toilet

 

[velvetfoot]

I'm going to put "ride the cog railway" on my to-do list for this summer!

Thinking about how to freeze proof a hot-water heat house in case of power failure while on vacation (other than the standby generator thing)....

If you turned off the water to minimize damage to the house plus maybe drained the water (I don't know), how much makeup water is typically used in a relatively new how water system? If it gets too low does the heat shut off (which sensor does this)?

 

[elkimmeg]

what about freeze protector alarms ? you attach them to your pipes to monitor temps and set the alarm to go off when freeze conditions are approached Goggle freeze alarms

I wonder if they can be tied into theromstats to activate the zones for circulation?


I'm planning to start another post on why furnace hot water boilers require cycling if they are turned off many pipe gaskets leak
due to contraction, they are meant to be cycled.

 

[velvetfoot]

elk, do you have any idea how much makeup water your system uses?

 

[Greg123]

Lot’s of great Idea’s …. Thanks, I like the idea Corey has about the cloths dryers with two young kids we are constantly washing clothes and using our electric dryer which is located in the basement.

 

[erikdhafaB]

A "How not to..." example from the local news last night:

Lamp Used To Heat Pipes Blamed For Cotswold Duplex Fire

POSTED: 4:48 pm EST February 6, 2007
UPDATED: 5:21 pm EST February 6, 2007

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Firefighters say someone trying to keep their pipes warm may have sparked a fire in Cotswold late Monday.

A one-story duplex on Clover Road caught fire around 10:30 p.m. Michael Howell, who just moved into a home across the street, saw the smoke and fire billowing and ran to check on his 69-year-old disabled neighbor.

Howell said she was on the other side of the door and said she didn’t have her key and couldn’t get out. He told her to step back and started kicking.

Firefighters said the blaze started in the storage room in between the duplex units, where they say a lamp was being used to keep the pipes from freezing during the frigid temperatures. They said the lamp was too close to the wall, and the excessive heat caught the room on fire.

The fire caused an estimated $25,000 in damage, but no one was hurt thanks to Howell.

 

[Roospike]

Sounds like were back to UL listed items that are actually made to keep pipes warm and from freezing and also the adding of insulation and to fill cracks. ;-)

 

[Henz]

with my 1850's house, I have come to the realization that you need to run your furnace at times. We have a digital thermostat and therefore can set the minimum temps according to the times. I do not let the house fall below 66 degrees anymore and I actually set my base temp at 68 during these real cold snaps..Put it this way, I have a 1400sqft house with a new Avalon Olympic. Last night it was -5 degrees out and I had to get up and re-load my olympic at 2am cause it wasent pumping out enough heat and my furnace came on tellign me that the house temp was below 68 degrees. Last weekend was spent replacing some broken crawls space kitchen sink pipes and then wrapping them wit hthe dense pipe foam. Today I have been informed that my downstairs shower is frozen up. Hope to hell I ahve no leaks when I get home and thaw it out! I will add the pipe foam to the piple cause they are located close to the foundation sill and get a fraft on them..
If you ever have a frozen pipe, run your hand along it until you feel a draft, 99% of the time thats where the freeze up will be