winter water freeze-up

[Fiddlehead44]

I am living on the shore of a lake in Eastern Canada, about

10 miles from the U.S. border. I have retired and live there year-around.

During the winter, I pump our laundry and general use water

directly out of the lake. We carry our dringing and cooking water

from a neighbors home. As my shoreline is very shallow, I have to extend my intake

out about 200 feet to get below the frozen ice. I inserted a heating line

inside of the plastic pipe to keep it from freezing. This thermostaticly controlled

system works fine, but eats up electric power very fast. I would dearly love

to hear of a better system for this water setup. Anyone?

                                          Fiddlehead

[Zix]

Hi,

Do you have storage for the laundry water after pumping it from the lake?

A band aid fix might be to turn on the line heater pump your water then turn it of til you need another batch,you may have to experiment with the thaw time.

Zix  

[electrondady1]

would it help to blow air into the pipe between use . you would lose your prime.

[Volvo farmer]

My uncle lives on a lake but has a "point well" I believe it's only fifteen feet deep or so, since he's so close to the lake. I wonder if a 15 foot deep hole directly under your heated living space would provide the water you need and stay unfrozen?

[ghurd]

Maybe bury the pipe?  It is probably all stone.

Or let the water trickle? Waste of power, but less than a heater.

Had a house where the plumbing was in an unheated crawl space, and had to let it run at a good drip rate if the temperature got below 15'F.

The problem it caused was in very long cold spells, inside the drain pipes would freeze up even though they were insulated.

G-

[DanG]

I'm curious to know the power requirements for the resistance heater you have working in the line, also if you are able alter the shoreline or lake bottom, and what your water requirements are during the bitter winter months?

[Fiddlehead44]

My shoreline is very shallow and the bottom is mostly rock.

Even if I could trench it, the regulations wouldn't allow

me to. I had concidered digging a hole close to the shore

and close to my cottage. I could bury a line to this 4' deep

and the lake would probably keep the hole filled. Of course,

I would have to insulate the top closure, but I'm not sure

this would work. Our winters often get to -30 F and last year

my line froze solid during a 2 day power outage. It took me

several hours afterwards to get it thawed with the inside

resistance wire. I had heard of someone using a submersable

pump that would fill up the resivour and then open the line

at the water inlet and drain the pipe back into the lake before

it had a chance to freeze. It was angled upward from the source

in a continuous elevation to the resivour. This may work but I think I would need special valves

 

[inode buddha]

Dunno, it's actually a hard question IMHO. I live within walking distance from Lake Ontario, and I normally get the full blast of winter. Friends of mine have a very similar situation.

The first idea was to bury it as deep as possible. The local code required at least 5 feet (roughly 1,8 metres). We did a lot of digging. Heating the line was too expensive, so I suggested to my friend to leave some water running in a tap or whatever. Running water doesn't freeze after all.

I don't have very many other ideas for this except maybe passive solar heating. The winter sun is intense in its own way.

[DanG]

Having the supply line empty and drawing cold water into it sounds like a problem, the heater can't be active w/o water contact, last thing you want is open circut on the line heater or melted pipe - Question: where is the thermostat located, and what is the cut-in temperature?

Drawing 1°C water into a -5°C pipe would work most times untill thin layers of ice builds up inside line that doesn't melt, its repetitive partial thawing of ice build-ups thats most damaging to pipes since the expansion gets a leverage bite on something other then then opposite wall of pipe which blocks expansion up and down stream inside the pipe...

Since you know you can defrost a two-day solid freeze in a few hours, why not set heater on a timer, draw water 90 minutes or such after heater-on-time into a cistern with pump and float switch in/near the house? 'Super-insulating' vulnerable portions of the line, 4' lengths of std foam pipe wrap with aluminized bubble-wrap 'reflectix' insulation spooled over top and sealed would seem effective for 24-hour intervals.

Using a solar hot water heater and closed-loop recirculating hot water is upping the complexity a whole bunch - drawing up your water to a cistern at dawn then allowing the solar-heated water to warm up the supply line in its insulated sheath could be a solution, or a drain-to-waste warmed water line alongside the supply line could be used if you kept it hygenic...

Anyhow I think a $100 500-gallon plastic livestock tank-cistern is in your future, prolly save that much not running the heater line as much.  A million ways to do this, just what you have on hand  etc.

[joelhacker]

Why not have two pipes...and continuously circulate

the water in and out of your house during those

severe cold days...it would beat the water usage

of the drip technique (I assume you have a septic system)

and would ensure that the supply at the bottom of the

lake.  Wouldn't have to be a real high rate either...

just enough to keep water moving.

[scottsAI]

To heat 200' of pipe most be costly. I expect >$200/yr. Like the other guy said, put in a well under your house. Ground water must be very shallow. Looking at the pipe heaters they are 5w/ft, 200 feet will be 1kwHr per hour at 10 cents/kwhr.

Lets see, Winter 6 months long. Time below freezing 50%.

6 * 0.5 * 30 * 24 * 0.10 =  $216 per year.

Adjust actual cost based on your electric cost, other assumptions.

Had a friend who's property last century was a swamp. Filled in 60 years ago. Ground water is shallow, maybe 6-7 feet. He was complaining it cost him $150 per month to water his lawn. I told him to go to the hardware store buy a 1” well point for $50, well pipe cost $10 per 5”, needed two lengths, half HP pump motor, cost ~$200. Saved more each year than the parts cost. Took <2 hours to put in the well and hook it up, including driving the pipe and point into the ground. Price may be higher, early 90's.

I helped another guy put in a 2” well point in his basement sump. He had 5 acres to water, 15 years later he is still using the original well. Now I know why the pipe lengths are 5', so you can install a well in your basement!

For $130 you can get a reverse osmosis (RO) filter system, needs 40psi to work, suppose to be good enough to make your water drinkable. They use RO for ocean water, fresh water from the ground should be easy. May want to check there are no bad chemicals in your ground water. So close to the lake, surprising if it did, but that is why we check.. Testing is cheap. Then you don't need to go get your drinking water.

If your power goes out often, you can get a 12v water pump used for RV on eBay, something like $50. Use it as a back up (or use it all the time). I have one, does

2.5gpm at 40psi, even runs the shower! If you use your car battery, the pump draws 15-20amps, get < 3 hour of pump time on one car battery, not recommended to go more than 1.5hr (kill battery). Or use golf cart batteries. $50 each need two and a charger. Get small, may take couple days to charge.

Have fun.

[ghurd]

I thought about 3 pipes, same idea.

With the house pipe to the house.

The other 2 pipes up and back to the lake and quite deep at the ends.

All 3 in the same insulation. Or maybe just the house and up from the lake pipes in the insulation, back to the lake pipe in it's own insulation.

The up and back pipe pump only needs a very low circulation and power because of almost 0' head (I think), but should keep the house pipe thawed.

G-

[Mike Wolak]

Bubbler,  boats in the winter that are not removed all year round have a bubbler system under the boat so the water won't freeze.  A small low power bubbler under your intake pipe will keep the water from freezing.  Just a thought......