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Keep well lines from freezing?

Started by mitchstockdale, April 04, 2018, 11:04:36 AM

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mitchstockdale

Hey Everyone,

I have shallow bedrock around my new house (maybe 20 to 24" of cover).  I will be installing the well lines as soon as the snow melts and can get a trench dug. The house is situated on top of a hill where we get the north wind all winter long...just wondering if anyone has ever considered or has installed a hydronic loop (from their OWB system) in the bottom of their water pipe trench in preparation for the eventual freeze up of their well pipe? ??? ??? (Guaranteed the conditions will be just right some year)

My thought is to box insulate all piping from the well head (this has to be done with or without the heating) to the house and lay 1/2" heating pex on the bottom layer of insulation such that in the event of a freeze up I can turn some valves and start pumping hot water (from my OWB system) through the 1/2" lines to warm up the water piping in the trench and around the well head. The loop would have to be full of glycol or have the ability to be drained while not in use. 

I have considered electric heat tracing but have heard mixed feelings about its reliability and longevity, the well pump installer also advised against it in case the heat trace was forgotten about and overheated and potentially comprimised the line from the well head (Municipex).  A neighbor has a 200ft line from his house to his barn which froze up this winter due to a heat trace failure.

Here is a quick hand sketch of the general arrangement I was thinking of.



Bandmill Bandit

IF it was me I'd run a couple of 4 inch PVC drain line conduits and run the water and power in one and the heating lines in the other. Still use the rigid foam and sand but the air space of the 4" conduit makes it very easy to thaw the lines if you ever need to. Also allows for easy repair should that be required. IF the heat line is only for thaw purpose in the event of a freeze you would only need one conduit.

Also could run heat tape in the conduit with few thermal sensors along the length of the line in the conduit to auto shut off/on as temp dictates. Might be a bit of over kill but youd never have to worry about it.  
.  
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mike_belben

I have a cabin that im slowly restoring, its on a typical crawlspace that has pipes freeze up every few years.  Im gonna staple the R3 bubble wrap style insulation under the floor joists where the lines are and put a diverter valve for the dryer vent to blow down there when freezeup is a risk.  Will put a screen at the outlet end so air flow is possible without critters getting in.   Itll kinda work like a panned bay in HVAC return.  
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47sawdust

I thin your plan is well thought out,but Bandmill bandits' is also excellent.I have had frozen water line in the past and it really sucks.
Mick
1997 WM Lt30 1999 WM twin blade edger Kubota L3750 Tajfun winchGood Health Work is my hobby.

Hilltop366

I'm thinking why heat up that much earth, I would be incline to put the well line and the heat loop all together wrapped in flexible insulation in a conduit from the house to the well, may still want to use the foam board on top for further insurance.

The one issue I can see is if the pvc conduit is sloped towards the house and is not water tight ground water could find its way into your basement (if you have a basement).

Bandmill Bandit

Quote from: Hilltop366 on April 04, 2018, 01:39:31 PM
I'm thinking why heat up that much earth, I would be incline to put the well line and the heat loop all together wrapped in flexible insulation in a conduit from the house to the well, may still want to use the foam board on top for further insurance.

The one issue I can see is if the pvc conduit is sloped towards the house and is not water tight ground water could find its way into your basement (if you have a basement).
A 4 inch conduit is your long run best and most economical. Just make sure the conduit is sloped away from the house and if possible put a small pocket of drain rock at the end of the pipe for condensation to drain into. I find wrapping is a rather a chicey way to sort of try to mitigate the freezing issue.
    
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WLC

Quote from: mike_belben on April 04, 2018, 11:42:53 AM
I have a cabin that im slowly restoring, its on a typical crawlspace that has pipes freeze up every few years.  Im gonna staple the R3 bubble wrap style insulation under the floor joists where the lines are and put a diverter valve for the dryer vent to blow down there when freezeup is a risk.  Will put a screen at the outlet end so air flow is possible without critters getting in.   Itll kinda work like a panned bay in HVAC return.  
Mike, I know you are probably only going to run the dryer vent under your floor if/when your pipes freeze up, but I'm going to suggest you find another way.  You will be dumping a lot of moisture under your floor unless you run the dryer empty.  The typical load of clothes run through a dryer puts out approximately a gallon to a gallon and a half of water vapor per load.  That's a lot of moisture that will condense in an unheated crawlspace and cause lots of problems at some point.  Just a thought for you to ponder in case you hadn't already thought of it.
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mike_belben

I agree, but its got plenty of wind whipping under it.  Nearly two whole sides are slightly open to mitigate the moisture issue it was having from runoff going under.   Cant be any worse than the time the pipes flooded the interior while i was away!
Praise The Lord

Hilltop366

Quote from: Bandmill Bandit on April 04, 2018, 02:52:10 PM
Quote from: Hilltop366 on April 04, 2018, 01:39:31 PM
I'm thinking why heat up that much earth, I would be incline to put the well line and the heat loop all together wrapped in flexible insulation in a conduit from the house to the well, may still want to use the foam board on top for further insurance.

The one issue I can see is if the pvc conduit is sloped towards the house and is not water tight ground water could find its way into your basement (if you have a basement).
A 4 inch conduit is your long run best and most economical. Just make sure the conduit is sloped away from the house and if possible put a small pocket of drain rock at the end of the pipe for condensation to drain into. I find wrapping is a rather a chicey way to sort of try to mitigate the freezing issue.
   
"wrapped in flexible insulation and in a conduit"  I should have added the word and to be more clear.

I agree that 4" drain is probably going to be the most economical thing to use if the pipes and insulation will fit, otherwise a larger pipe may be needed for this method.
My thinking is why heat a larger area when you can heat the water line directly by having the heat line touching it under the same blanket so to speak also having a couple feet wide of insulation board over it or a box like in the picture to protect it from frost will go a long way to rarely ever needing to heat it.

Bandmill Bandit

Yes Hilltop that is over killing the over kill but that is a good idea too.
   
Skilled Master Sawyer. "Skilled labour don't come cheap. Cheap labour dont come skilled!
2018 F150 FX4, Husqvarna 340, 2 Logright 36 inch cant hooks and a bunch of stuff I built myself

E Yoder

One thought, there are manufacturers out there that can wrap you any combination of pipe and insulation you want (Badger, etc).
1-1", 2 -1/2", with 5 wraps around everything. Then the glycol loop would be directly against the well pipe as you had mentioned above in corrugated and you just roll it out or buy the wrapped pipe only and feed it through PVC as was mentioned. I've hand wrapped years ago and it's never very neat and doesn't feed through conduit well. Prewrapped is slick and easy.
The glycol loop could be on a mixing valve turned down to 75° on a switch or temp sensor.
Just thinking here. I'm kind of repeating what others have said.
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Southside

Having owned a home I did not build which had ground quite shallow to ledge my advice would be to hire a ripper or hammer to break through the bedrock deep enough to get below the frost line. 

I can't tell you how many times I cursed the builders for only going down to the ledge as it was cheaper and easier rather than deal with the issues the right way. 

How much piece of mind does spending  a couple thousand dollars buy on a home to never have to worry about issues due to finding a cheap fix? 
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thecfarm

I used the wrong kind of piping for my OWB. It will melt the snow where it runs into the house,if it don't snow for a while. I know that would keep your pipe from freezing with no need to build around it. Probably some rigid foam would help over it.Could you run a OWB line under your water line and have it come into your house that way? Yes,you would use more wood,due to the heat loss,and I do,but you would never have to worry about it. No valves to turn,nothing to add to that line,so it won't freeze either. I would like the peace of mind of never having to worry about it not freezing.
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Corley5

  I've got to run water and OWB heat lines to my sugar shack.  My plan is to use the black corrugated pipe with the foil bubble wrap insulation which has some heat loss ;) ;D.  I'm going to put it in the bottom of the trench and put the black poly tubing for the potable water on top of it.  There's two driveways to go under and I'll put blue board Styrofoam over the lines in those places.  It'll be buried 5' deep as well.  The building will only be heated a few weeks a season.  If the water line does freeze it won't take too long to thaw it with heat loss from the 180 degree water below it.  The driveway areas are the only places freezing could be an issue.  Most winters we have enough snow cover that our ground doesn't freeze.
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jmur1

Hi mitchstockdale:

Would it ever be an option to build a small dirt berm above to get your 4+ ft depth?  I would have to be fairly wide but your sketch shows 24-30" depth.  Your really not that far away from the needed depth (insulation above the lines will still give an added precaution)

jmur1 
Easy does it

york

Years ago,the old timer would cover with horse manure .
Albert

Bandmill Bandit

There is another very effective option that is not cheap but less costly than some of the options suggested so far.

Cellular Concrete!
At a density of 350KG/Cu M the insulation value is about R8 Per inch or about  equal to 6 to 8 inches of normal soil over burden to 1 inch of cellular concrete.

If you did 12 inchs of cellular so that you have 3 inches under and 8 inches above and 6ish inch minimum on either side you would never need to worry about it. even if it got to 40 below for a a week or 2.
Skilled Master Sawyer. "Skilled labour don't come cheap. Cheap labour dont come skilled!
2018 F150 FX4, Husqvarna 340, 2 Logright 36 inch cant hooks and a bunch of stuff I built myself

Randy88

I do this for others all the time, we hammer a trench wide enough and deep enough to get far below the frost line, then either use non perf drain tile or pvc and put your water line in that, if you have issues with a leak in the future, you don't have to dig again, you just pull a new line through as you pull the old line out.    Cover the line with sand or good soil to keep as many rocks away from it as you can.     

I could type pages of issues many have had when they didn't start with their water lines below the frost level, your cheapest long term solution is to start with the line below frost level, anything less and your setting yourself up for years and decades of grief and costs far greater than the initial cost to put it below frost level.      We recommend putting any water lines 1-2 feet deeper than frost layer, same for the well head and the house end, if your entire line is well below frost layer, its your best option, if not, your going to make many repair people in your area very happy and give them long term job security.    


711ac

"They" say an inch of foam is equal to a foot of earth cover. You don't need the foil and the sand will transmit cold through it, use stone (air spaces). I like your "box" idea but have seen good results just going as wide as you can with the insulation in your ditch (pipe in the middle), that is if you end up with a 3' ditch by the time you clean it up, "bed" your well pipe & elec in some 3/4" stone, cover only by a few inches put as many layers of foam on top as you like (wall to wall foam in your ditch with the pipe centered).  It's a lot simpler and should use no more insulation than "boxing" it. I have no data or proof one is better than the other, but I've seen this work. If you can keep snow cover on your lines that also helps a good bit. (don't plow it)

Markus Johnson

I will running into similar issues with shallow bedrock when it comes times to run water lines for our new house build. I am planning on using a hydraulic breaker for the section of lines where rock is the hardest and shallowest. My in-laws are multi generation plumbers, they say you MUST get below frost and strongly recommend using a liner/conduit to run your lines in. This way if a line bursts, you can pull it out and not have to dig. Plan ahead for the worst case scenario. Keep it simple!

mitchstockdale

Been a while ....cold temperatures got me back on the forum.

Just an update of what I did for my well trench.

Ended up installing a 1" well line i think it is called Municipex... could be mistaken.  Its really tough stuff.

Was able to get down 20 to 24" inches into the bedrock before it started to get really hard.  



 



 



 

Before backfilling I ran a loop of PEX heat piping in with my well line out around the well casing and back to the house.  I will connect this loop to a dedicated header fed from my outdoor wood boiler once I have it installed.  I will leave the loop empty and only fill it in the event of a freeze up. 



 



 

So all in all i have about 3' to 3'-6" of cover not including final grading which will likely be about another 4 to 6" maybe more.  I also put a 12" wide piece of 2" rigid foam on top of the piping after it was bedded with gravel not sure if its really going to do anything so we will see.  Then I filled the rock trench to the top with gravel and put a 2' wide piece of 2" foam on top. 



 



 



 



 



 

Ideally I would have a full 4' wide sheet down at the bottom of the trench only a couple inches off the pipe...but that just wasnt going to happen. Didn't have the budget for a breaker so had to make it work with what i had available.

What I have come to realize is there are several factors that come in to play with the degree to which the ground freezes, such as,  how much extreme cold do you get before it snows, does it rain in the winter, will there be any snow at all, do you pile snow or brush over well trench, does the well trench get driven on daily, all things to consider.

Another factor I was thinking of is the inherent mass of rock that the pipe is nearly sitting on ...that must play some factor in regulating the temperature underground.

Thats what I have for now, hope someone with similar setup / conditions can get some ideas and improve on what I have done to suit their needs.




tawilson

You are going to be fine and also correct about the bedrock. My line is less than 24", on bedrock and has no insulation and has never froze up.
Tom
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DWyatt

I see what appears to be a Hilti and a pick-axe in those pictures which means you put in a lot more effort than most people would have. :o You should have zero problems with your line freezing. That rigid insulation will do more than you think. We have plans at work from the 90s where they ran a waterline that had 1.5' cover from the ground surface above and 1.5' cover from a large box culvert below. One layer of 2" foam on top and bottom of the waterline and no problems. 

Bandmill Bandit

That as first rate job in my Book. If you EVER do get a freeze let us know BUT I am not gona hold my breath for the news. 
Skilled Master Sawyer. "Skilled labour don't come cheap. Cheap labour dont come skilled!
2018 F150 FX4, Husqvarna 340, 2 Logright 36 inch cant hooks and a bunch of stuff I built myself

47sawdust

I agree,that is a great job.You should never have a problem.
Mick
1997 WM Lt30 1999 WM twin blade edger Kubota L3750 Tajfun winchGood Health Work is my hobby.

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