|
| Author |
Message |
Bzzzzzt
Member
|
# Posted: 7 Apr 2014 10:32pm
Reply
My water tower plumbing froze and busted over the winter. I was talking to a friend who lives in Michigan and he suggested I build myself some sort of flue around the pipes and leave a 20 gal propane tank with some sort of "pilot light" going allowing the small amount of heat to flow up through and prevent the pipes from freezing. Just a pilot light might burn for a couple months and be just enough to keep it warm enough.
Anybody thought of anything like this or some other method of off grid, not there freeze prevention?
|
|
MtnDon
Member
|
# Posted: 7 Apr 2014 11:03pm - Edited by: MtnDon
Reply
The pilot light on our 6 gallon RV water heater consumes 162 grams of propane in a 24 hour period. I can not say it is typical of pilot lights; it is the only one I have tested. At 21,591 BTU per pound of propane that works out to almost 2950 BTU per 160 grams, 2950 BTU per 24 hours. That works out to about 120 BTU per hour, if I did my math right. Somebody check that ok? 120 btu/hour = approx 35 watts of electricity.
That does not seem like much heat. The chase around the pipes would need to be very well insulated to work.
|
|
silverwaterlady
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 04:38am - Edited by: silverwaterlady
Reply
Replace pipes with pex?
We built a water tower at our cabin. We drain everything. We do not rely on rainwater however.
|
|
ShabinNo5
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 05:16am
Reply
Can you place a valve at the tank and drain the rest of the plumbing over the winter? Assuming that the tank will not burst, this would protect the rest of the plumbing.
Also, extending MtnDon's figures... His pilot light is consuming propane at a rate of one pound every 7.3 days. A 20 lb propane tank provides only 16-17 lbs of usable propane. My math would indicate about 120 days before the propane ran out. That is assunming that the propane tank was full at the beginning. If you go this route, you may want to use a larger propane tank.
Beyond the heat requirements, propane is not fool proof. A strong wind can blow out the pilot; what is the record cold for your area, propane stops flowing around -40f.
|
|
TheWildMan
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 08:00am
Reply
as ShabinNo5 said, put a valve on to drain the pipes, since they already you need to do work on them, take the opportunity to put a valve in if you don't have one already. just drain the pipes for winter, that's probably the simplest and cheapest way to do it and will work better than trying to stop them from freezing, less that can go wrong.
|
|
bldginsp
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 08:57am
Reply
Here's an idea I had but haven't tried- a passive ground source heat circulator. The idea is to dig a trench near the water tank to well below frost depth, and place a poly pipe in it. Direct the pipe up toward the pipes that need to be warmed, with coils inside of the insulation around those pipes. Then lead the lower section of the poly pipe back to the earth. Put a one way valve in the loop. Hopefully, warmed water in the bottom of the loop in the earth will rise toward the piping at the tank, then as it is cooled it drops down and recirculates through the earth.
|
|
Bzzzzzt
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 05:39pm
Reply
Quoting: MtnDon That does not seem like much heat. The chase around the pipes would need to be very well insulated to work.
My dad used to keep our pump house from freezing up in the winter with a 60 watt light bulb. It doesn't take much heat to just keep the area above freezing, and like you said, it needs to be well insulated. Just knocking around some ideas and wondered if anyone else had tackled this issue.
|
|
SubArcticGuy
Member
|
# Posted: 8 Apr 2014 06:44pm
Reply
How about a solar heater - either air or water based...with a solar powered circulation pump (or fan) you could potentially gain a lot of heat....I am currently building a solar heater for my garage (air based): there are lots of informative videos on youtube.
|
|
|
silverwaterlady
Member
|
# Posted: 9 Apr 2014 01:00am
Reply
People did the bulb thing in the old days in the winter to keep their root cellers from freezing. That's not going to work if you're off grid.
|
|
|
