Keeping pipes from freezing...

[fini]

Well, I blew it.

My brother and I inherited a house in Mount Shasta that was built by our Grandfather and Dad, starting in 1948 when they bought the property (my grandparents retired there in '65). They did a good job on the plumbing (galvanized steel), adding drain valves at appropriate places so that the system could be drained for the winter, when no one was at home. These days, the water is fairly rusty, and my brother and I have decided to eventually replace the galvanized pipe with copper. This week I was forced to start the project...

Last December (during a cold snap), I finally got a chance to shut down the water, so I made a trip up (about 5 hrs.), planning to get out of there by evening, as a storm was expected and I didn't bring chains. It was pretty dang cold, around 18 degrees (nothin' to you northern folks!). I opened the door, and found the bathroom window wide open, and the toilet mostly frozen. The kitchen sink had an icicle hanging from the spout. So, I did what I could to thaw things out, like turning on the Monitor heater, closing the window (!), and leaving light bulbs glowing at the toilets and a few other critical places. I opened all the drains (of course nothing dripped out). I knew this was not good.

So last week we went up to survey the damage. Good news, the toilets were OK. The pipes, on the other hand, were not. I had my wife stay in the house while I went under to turn on the water. When she noticed water dripping from the ceiling...she told me to turn it off. Yep I had burst pipes. I went into the upstairs crawl space and found an obviously burst 3/4" tee. I spent the day replacing it (having to start in the basement, and working up to the 2nd floor). Time for a test, so this time Cathy went under the house, as I was upstairs checking for leaks. Well, my repair was good. Trouble was, I found many more burst pipes (they had been hidden by insulation). It was bad enough that I decided to replace as much of the pipes as I could easily, with copper. Since I didn't have the appropriate tools with me, we decided to go home and come up the next week. After 3 days of crawling, testing, repairing more leaks (discovering you'd forgotten to sweat one of the joints ca be an embarassing thing), we restored flowing water to the inside of the house! How continental!

Now I'm faced with preventing this from ever happening again. Which brings me to the question, what do you folks in cold winter climates do to keep the pipes from freezing? What's the best insulation? Anyone use something like EasyHeat Freeze Free cable? I really don't want to have to repair burst pipes again. TIA!

[Coytee]

A. That sucks

B. Sounds like a remote place?

C. Love to see pictures of it

D. For warmth, move south

[gaspr]

To winterize a home that will not be heated over the winter, what we do is either (A) set up all the water lines so that they slope to a drain cock and add antifreeze to all drain traps or ( drain and isolate the water heater and then fill all the water lines and drain traps with an RV antifreeze. (You need to have a shutoff valve on both the cold and hot lines at the water heater so it can be isolated and not filled with antifreeze...) We use a small pump to fill the water lines with the antifreeze.

I might also suggest that you get the necessary crimping tools and fittings for PEX water lines...much easier to work with and somewhat more frost tolerant...

Good luck!!

[Brac]

The problem with the anti-freeze tape, is it is electric dependent, winter storms often knock out power, then everything freezes. In maine we try to slpoe everything so it is easy to drain the system, but we also blow out all lines with compressed air, just to be sure. Where is this place and how cold does it get?

[JJkizak]

Get rid of all the galvanized pipe, even the drains. The drains will plug up after about 20 years with corrosion and ugly stuff. All mine are replaced with CPVC schedule 80 hard pipe with CPVC ball valves after the copper was eaten away by our PH 5.3 water. I figured if it was good enough for a state of the art chemical plant scrubber system it was good enough for me. The PEX might work a lot better even if frozen as it will flex when the water freezes.

JJK

[JL Sargent]

PEX is the future of plumbing it appears to us. We do some plumbing work for the railroad and its all going PEX. We do repairs on camp cars that are used as mobile housing for RR employees. Anytime the older copper pipes freeze (it happens way too often) its replaced with PEX. It is sooooo much better to work with. So much faster. Now get it cold enough and it will freeze too but repairs are a snap. These railroad cars travel mucho miles bouncing up and down the tracks of the Eastern USA and rarely do they leak. I understand that European residential has been PEX for years.

[greg928gts]

My recommendations on this subject don't go over very well. But I recommend that if a building is insulated, that it always be heated. I've noticed too many moisture related problems with insulated buildings that are not heated through the winter. In the long run, plumbing issues and moisture related issues from other sources, with the resulting molds and degradation is more expensive to fix than heating a building to 45 degrees through the winter.

Pex is better at holding up to freezing, but it's still not good for it and will eventually cause problems if the Pex freezes over and over again. Pex tends to freeze first where metal bend supports are used, or where brass connectors are used. Try to use plastic bend supports instead. It's harder to slope Pex to drain it, so I don't know if I'd recommend it necessarily if you're going to keep the building unheated in the winter. It might be easier to do the copper and slope everything to drain points.

Greg

[fini]

Thanks for the input, gents! Brac, the house is in the town of Mt. Shasta, CA, at around 3500 feet. I'm not sure of historical or average Winter lows, but I'd say every year it gets low enough to freeze pipes! I saw a video this morning of a plumber who used compressed air to blast water out of the lines. Makes good sense. In your case, do you have valves permanently plumbed for this in critical locations?

I've considered PEX, but my brother is concerned about the health effects of plastic pipes and leaching (can you tell we're Californians?[]). None of the plastics used for potable water are 100% leach-free, and he (and, frankly, I) is/am/are concerned about not only the current knowledge and info on the subject, but what they may discover over time (i.e. Nalgene). Of course, copper will leach as well, and that may not be completely healthful. We've all got to compromise, I guess. I mean, I could pipe the place with stainless (and have a water system woth more than the house!). All this considered, and we do want to re-pipe from the well to the pressure tank (under the house), and need to figure out what to use here.

Richard:

"B. Sounds like a remote place?

C. Love to see pictures of it"

Here's a shot of me (at the door) and my brother at our palatial estate. Blame the color palate on my weird uncle [] who never quite finished his color conversion from green and red to lavender/pink (?) and gray(?). I think we'll ultimately go with something completely different...

[JL Sargent]

"but my brother is concerned about the health effects of plastic pipes and leaching"

Now thats one I haven't heard before.[] Best I can tell all drinking liquids at all the eaterys we partronize pass those liquids through pastic pipe or tubing. How does your brother get around it? I would be more concerned about the leaching from copper than PEX myself but I'm not too concerned about either at this point.

[greg928gts]

I think if you do some research, you'll find that PEX does not lose ANY of itself to the water over time. It is the very best material to convey water there is, from a health standpoint. The first use for PEX was to convey chemicals in industry, because of it's ability to convey all sorts of liquids without issue. But make sure you are researching Cross-linked Polyethelene (PEX), and not some other plastic piping.

Copper does give up some of itself over time, although I'm not sure how much of a health problem that is.

Do you know how many millions of older folks grew up in homes with lead pipes that brought the water in from the well?

BTW, tell your brother that having a garage located under the house is one hundred times more of a health issue than an entire lifetime of drinking water that flows through plastic pipes. []

Greg

[Brac]

Well, I my house I don't usally heat the upstairs unless I have company, it does get some because heat rises. However since we get to 30 or 40 below sometimes I have a few well placed valves that allow me to shut off and drain the upstairs, I also put a few in place so if i ever have a leak or a break I can depressurize and drain the whole system in just a few minutes. But I do agree with Greg, about keeping some heat on. When need be I drain out system (10 min. job) then leave heat on at 45ish.

Any water I missed is no issue, and if the heat unit (propane fireplace) has a problem I would not flood.