Happy New Years ! Ba Hum Bug for sure

Hope your new years is starting off better then mine. I awoke sat morning to no water, a foot of snow and the temp minus -22 Then after breakfast, decided to start my truck and get ready for a trip into town. Ign. Key switch snapped inside , so oh well. Fianally this morning after bypassing my key switch, started my truck and let it warm awhile. About 20 minutes or so and headed to town. Guess what, the six miles of dirt as usual weren't bad, but then the pavement was another story. 20 miles of compacted snow turned ice. I just love the county road crews here. No cinders or salt of any kind. Town was just as bad. Iced parking lots , roads and a lot of dark stores. Seems town lost most of its power while my water pipes were all freezing up. But , my wife called the well man, and it seems most of the pipes around this area, including pressure tanks and storage tanks were froze everywhere. At least I have power, heat and lots of food, plus pleanty of ext. gas for the gennies. This is one of the benifits of living off grid. It may be a week before all the pipes all finally thaw, but in town, it may take a little longer. Not to mention, that the two little grocery stores lost quite a bit of milk, ice cream and meat. My freezer and refer never even noticed. We made it up in the mid thirtys today , so it should start thawing soon, I hope. Well, I will sit here in my nice warm house, listening to oldies on my west. station, and play on my computer for awhile. Those on the grid, lets see, no heat for most as they need power for the blowers in their furnaces, no refers, no freeezers, no tv, no computers . Even hair dryers won't work. Am I gloating you ask ? You bet.

 

I lived in the White Mtns of AZ in mid to late 60's. I think it was the winter of 66-67 we had 5' of snow on the ground at one time. I remember the 4 lane street that ran thru Springerville, they used the center two lanes as 'snow storage' to get the other two lane open.....snow was piled so high, you couldn't see the buildings on the other side of the street. Every so often, the left a "hole" in the snow wall so you could make a turn. It was a heck of a winter...the national guard was flying/dropping hay to cattle stranded out on the range.

 

Wow! we were 50 degrees on Thursday and Friday. Now we are back to normal January temps and snow with a fresh 6 inches on the ground and temps around 28. I feel fortunate now after reading your posts. One nice thing about Michigan is that we tend to have slightly warmer temps due the Lake Michigan . But if the big lake freezes over we can get real cold. So far our winter has been mild. We got 120 canning jars this morning adding to a 350 dollar pantry stocking yesterday. I ordered 10 food grade 5 gallon buckets that should be here tomorrow for the new bags of rice and flour, sugar and pasta. W e picked up five 7 gallon water containers with seals and faucets. We are getting ready for that Generator to be delivered and the propane tank. Lots to do. Kingfish

 

Bruce, we are below the frost line for this area. Since building code here is at or below the 16" mark, most of the places here are exactly that. I will probable have a new trench dug come spring, buy some 3" pvc pipe, then buy new 3/4" water pvc pipe, wrap the 3/4" and bury it all together , as I want this to be the last time this happens.

 

Hi Andy, In the early 80's it did the same thing. I have seen ShoLow the same way , but out here where I live, it gets even worse. I framed a couple of houses over in the Springerville area one winter. Cold damn place and of that there can be no doubt.

 

I am getting ready this afternoon to order the propane conversion kit for my 7k Kohler and end this choke and gas problem. If you freeze the flour for about 24 hours before putting it into the buckets, you will have killed any bad things trying to grow in it before you pack it up.

 

I only see one little problem with that theory Ghrit. Have you ever seen a small stream frozen completley over ? It is moving although it will still freeze. And, totally on solar, it is not feasable to keep your water pump working around the clock. They are huge energy users.

 

What's an emergency for the masses is a vacation for the prepared. I always enjoyed those deep snows and power outages - it's a chance to sit by the wood stove and catch up on my reading.

Of course, all that goes right out the window if the grid goes down for good.

Look on the bright side - you got to find the weak links in your systems during peacetime...

Happy New Year!

 

Am working on that right now. Am waiting for quotes from a couple of suppliers for the conversion kits for propane for my generator and then will be wiring in my sine wave inverter to the house , and of course my system so that once it is propane, my inverter will start it up whenever the batteries get a little too low. We will be fat city soon ! Of course , still will need a couple of more days for the pipes to thaw. But in the upper 30's today, so should start some anyway. I hope ! Nadja

 

What brand of heat tape are you using for direct burial in the ground? I've yet to install any that was approved for direct burial in the ground.

OR

Did you sleeve the water piping in a larger diameter pipe? Which would make the most sense to me, as heat taping eventually fails and needs replacing.

 

The single most preventive measure to keep water from freezing in piping is flow, usually it only needs to be a little more than a steady drip. Yes, moving water can freeze if it's cold enough long enough but water without any movement will freeze quicker. Moving water doesn't change the temperature water freezes it only increases the amount of water to be frozen. As long as you are not in an environment that water will freeze upon direct contact with the air, you are usually good to go in keeping your piping from freezing.

So, leaving the water running in a few faucets protects you in more than one way. It could prevent the water from freezing and if it does freeze your piping more than likely won't break.

ETA: Besides that if the water does freeze inside the piping, usually it won't break if faucets are left running. It's not the frozen water inside the piping that ruptures the piping, it's the excessive buildup of pressure on the fixture side of the ice block that ruptures the piping. The excess pressure has nowhere to go when the faucets are closed.

 

I meant to comment on this earlier and got distracted.

Buried at the same depth and under the same conditions, you would be far better served to use Uponor Wirsbo (PEX) tubing w/o any insulation and heat tape than to use PVC with heat tape and insulation.

Wirsbo is not freeze proof but is far more freeze resistant than PVC/CPVC, copper or galvanized piping. Wirsbo's 25 yr. warranty (the only PEX manufacturer to offer a 25 yr. warranty) does not warranty their tubing from freezing.

The likelihood of a rupture from freezing is extremely slim but it can happen especially when fittings are installed too close to one another. The fittings are the weak link in the system. One of the advantages of Wirsbo tubing is that it is extremely flexible and available in up to 1000' rolls, eliminating the need for a lot of fittings.

Wirsbo tubing has many other advantages over other piping materials but it isn't always the right answer for all plumbing applications. However, Wirsbo would be your best insurance against ruptures from freezing.

Being I cut my teeth in the industry soldering and brazing copper, I never thought I'd see the day that I would be an advocate for Wirsbo for certain applications.

It is no more difficult to install than PVC. It's so simple, even a monkey can do it

 

I will be burying my pipe this spring at over 2' deep. I have built houses where the plumbers have put in the wirsbo, and would have to say, I really don't care for it. Not possible for the average person to fix unless you want to spend the money for the special tool needed to put the couplers in. So, in an endtime or shtf type situation, it would be a very bad thing. I simply keep a small supply of pipe and a large supply of fittings on hand all the time. I keep spare water pumps, and more importantly switches for the pumps. Colt Carbine, I have lived here for almost 16 years now, 26 miles from the nearest town. Growing up on a farm in a very rural area, I learned a long time ago to have an assortment of emergancy parts on hand. So, when I go to the hardware store for a pipe fitting, I will ususally buy 3. Same thing with solar. If I need a couple of ends for my battery cables, I buy 10 or so. The boy scout motto back in the 50's anyway was "be preparred" and I sure try to be.