Protecting your pipes this winter.

Joey the lips

Hi Folks its that time of year again.... No not christmas but freezing pipes. I thought we might start a thread on it... If its successful we can either sticky it or bullet point it... As i suggested it i will start with a couple of obvious and avoid the contra ones like the light bulb in the attic... Not eco apparantly...:rolleyes:

Anyway...

To protect your attic tank. Make sure its insulated all around with exception of underneath.

To protect outside taps. Isolate from inside..

To protect freezing mains..DONT sweep the snow away from over it. How ever if already frozen Do sweep it away. Snow acts as an insulator so if the mains has not frozen it can keep out ground frost. However if it has frozen it can keep the frost in.

Your pumped electric shower works harder in the winter so try use the storage tank fed system if possible,

ntpm

Moving water doesn't freeze:
If you have ensuites/ bathrooms/ Showers that are not used regulary (especially if their pipes run through attic) you should run showers hot/cold taps occasionally.

Keep attic warm:
Fit Frost Watch Heaters or infared lamps with a frost thermostat . They self regulate and only switch on when required.

If there are no heaters open up attic trap door on extremly cold days/ nights.

External boiler/ Heating pipes run underground (to outside boiler room/shed)

Do you have a Frost Thermostat at boiler. ( protect pipes/ boiler from freezing).
TEST THE FROST STAT IF YOU HAVE ONE!!!!!

Use timmer to turn heating on for short periods ( especially during the night) to keep pipes warm and water moving.

gunner0098

Need some advice please.
My house is in a field about 160 odd metres from the road, access is over a small narrow bridge. My main water supply pipe runs across the outer wall of the bridge and then it's buried under ground and up to the house.
The pipe is not insulated, just a plain old black pvc pipe (2" I think) as it crosses the bridge. I realise this is not the proper way to have our main supply but it's a long story, and I need to address it now as it froze for nearly 3 days last year. That was the longest time but it was frozen on and off all winter.

What's the best way to insulate this pipe?
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

kay 9

Foil back be good and tape it well afterwards with denso or the likes. MInd you Denso is terrible stuff to work with:D Good tape would do. Deso is water proof though.

indie armada

if you dont allready know where your mains shut off valve is located, find out now incase the worst case scenario happens. its allways surprised me the ammount of ppl who dont know where it is when i ask them. :rolleyes:

Joey the lips

I imagine the only thing you can do is lagg it. You cannot bury it deep enough and i am not to sure if you can heat it.

CBYR1983

Some idiot ran a qualpex pipe for the outside tap out at the bottom of the wall, then put a 90 bend with more qualpex up along the wall to a bib tap. About 3 Feet of sagging qualpex. There's also no way of isolating from cold kitchen mains (no valve), no non-return valve, and f all access due to built in kitchen!

Any ideas? Should I get a plumber or just lag the outside pipe and hope for the best??

paddy147

-5 degrees celcuis for tonight??

Hope everyone is well wrapped up so.;)

yangzone

ntpm wrote: »

Fit Frost Watch Heaters or infared lamps with a frost thermostat . They self regulate and only switch on when required.

Any info on a make and where to get a "Frost Watch heater"?

ntpm

yangzone wrote: »

Any info on a make and where to get a "Frost Watch heater"?

Most decent electrical / DIY whoesalers/ stores.

Looking around 35 yoyos...for basic version
around 50+ euros for Honeywell make.....

They come with plug ( 3Amp Rated fuse), so you will need to have a socket outlet wired in the attic.
Will need an electrician to wire it through a socket circuit or possibly run of the lighting circuit!!
(I am open to clarification regarding where the supply should be taken from!!!):D

Alternative is to use an infared heat lamp, separate thermostat and switch and this needs to wired through lightinh circuit.....
Frost watcher is easier and quicker to instal.

galwayhillbilly

gunner0098 wrote: »

Need some advice please.
My house is in a field about 160 odd metres from the road, access is over a small narrow bridge. My main water supply pipe runs across the outer wall of the bridge and then it's buried under ground and up to the house.
The pipe is not insulated, just a plain old black pvc pipe (2" I think) as it crosses the bridge. I realise this is not the proper way to have our main supply but it's a long story, and I need to address it now as it froze for nearly 3 days last year. That was the longest time but it was frozen on and off all winter.

What's the best way to insulate this pipe?
I'd appreciate any suggestions.

4 inch sewer pipe filled with expanding foam, bore a hole every 6-12 inches and fill with expanding foam about 4 cans to every length of sewer pipe, biggest probelm is keeping the internal pipe centred.
Doesnt have to be sewer pipe other types of plastic piping might be cheaper, if the water pipe is 2ins you might need to use 6 inch or 8 inch pipe outside to give deeper insulation, this means more foam and that is expensive

Mayo Exile

I filled a couple of bread bags with that polystyrene moulded foam stuff and put it down the hole where the water supply enters my house. Fills it nicely! Hole is about 10 inches wide and pipe & stopcock is about 2 feet down.

Hopefully this helps. In a housing estate. We lost water for about a week in January during last cold spell.

irish_goat

Any advice for student housing that will be left empty for 2/3 weeks? Last year a load of our radiators burst cause of the cold, was a total nightmare.

ntpm

irish_goat wrote: »

Any advice for student housing that will be left empty for 2/3 weeks? Last year a load of our radiators burst cause of the cold, was a total nightmare.

Set your timer for the heating to switch on in the early morning/evening/ night for half ann hours or so.
If you have room thermostst set them to around 10C-14C. If the rooms stat gets to that temp then it will switch off heating so you are not waisting too much energy if no one is there.

oicherider

Thermal underwear.. Thermals are a must!:D

breadbin

if you use your taps during the day they'd hardly freeze overnight would they??

its just i'm freaking out now cos i had a burst pipe last year, i spent xmas with the famly and the heating packed in while i was away:( don't want a reoccurence of that nightmare!!

FoxT

irish_goat wrote: »

Any advice for student housing that will be left empty for 2/3 weeks? Last year a load of our radiators burst cause of the cold, was a total nightmare.

some boilers have an auto defrost setting - if your boiler has this, then leave it on all the time. It wont consume much fuel, just enough to prevent freezing. This has the added benefit that by putting a little heat into the house/apt, it reduces the risk of other pipes freezing as well.

If your boiler does not have this setting then
- turn the water temp down as low as possible
- set timer for boiler to run say 30 mins every four hours or so.

Another option could be to drain the CH system & leave it off.

Giving the weather we are likely to have though, I would not do that as I would be concerned other pipes could freeze.

Dirk Gently

anyone know of shops in Dub city centre with these frost watch heaters or something similar in stock. Called woodies but they never heard of them, they only have the usual oil heaters.

I've two light sockets at each end of the attic. Failing getting the frost watch heater would I be as well getting heater bulbs? Have two standard bulbs up there at the moment but they're not positioned close enough to the tank.

Ideally I'd prefer the frost watch to leaving heater bulbs on all the time.

paddy147

clown bag wrote: »

anyone know of shops in Dub city centre with these frost watch heaters or something similar in stock. Called woodies but they never heard of them, they only have the usual oil heaters.

I've two light sockets at each end of the attic. Failing getting the frost watch heater would I be as well getting heater bulbs? Have two standard bulbs up there at the moment but they're not positioned close enough to the tank.

Ideally I'd prefer the frost watch to leaving heater bulbs on all the time.

28 euro for a frost watcher in either Eurosales or N&D electrical whole salers.:)

Both are in Dublin.


Alternatively,have a look in McQuillans and Lenihans,both on Capel Street.

Sparkpea

breadbin wrote: »

if you use your taps during the day they'd hardly freeze overnight would they??

its just i'm freaking out now cos i had a burst pipe last year, i spent xmas with the famly and the heating packed in while i was away:( don't want a reoccurence of that nightmare!!

yes they will still freeze overnight possibly

some people would leave a bath tap dripping slightly therefore water going through the pipe, water moving from the tank, mains water filling in the tank at the same time so enough movement of water to stop freezing. I don't know if you guys down south pay for your water or not and I've only seen this done up north and again its not something I'd really recommend but its an option.

I've seen people leaving outside taps dripping and they still freeze!

Mayo Exile

This device could come in handy to prevent your stop cock freezing. Was mentioned in a piece on the RTE News during the week. There is also a website here.

imitation

Mayo Exile wrote: »

This device could come in handy to prevent your stop cock freezing. Was mentioned in a piece on the RTE News during the week. There is also a website here.

Nothing a lump of spare polyiso couldnt replicate , and I'm sure that doesnt cost 25 quid

paddy147

imitation wrote: »

Nothing a lump of spare polyiso couldnt replicate , and I'm sure that doesnt cost 25 quid

I think I,ll keep my 25 euro in my pocket so.;):)

WildOscar

imitation wrote: »

Nothing a lump of spare polyiso couldnt replicate , and I'm sure that doesnt cost 25 quid

where do you get that?

imitation

WildOscar wrote: »

where do you get that?

Its just kingspan or xtratherm. You'll probably find some in a ditch in a 1 mile radius of any building site, or maybe you can blag a few "samples" at a trade show.

antlyn

ntpm wrote: »

Most decent electrical / DIY whoesalers/ stores.

Looking around 35 yoyos...for basic version
around 50+ euros for Honeywell make.....

They come with plug ( 3Amp Rated fuse), so you will need to have a socket outlet wired in the attic.
Will need an electrician to wire it through a socket circuit or possibly run of the lighting circuit!!
(I am open to clarification regarding where the supply should be taken from!!!):D

Alternative is to use an infared heat lamp, separate thermostat and switch and this needs to wired through lightinh circuit.....
Frost watcher is easier and quicker to instal.

Hi am getting one of those heaters and have a friend to fit it just wondering where we should place the frost stat. Should it be directly over the water tanks? As if it was far away it mightn't feel the heat and the heater would be going all the time and heat would just be escaping out the roof? Where would you position heater and stat. Thanks ppl

WildOscar

would this do