Tundra_10
New member
- Oct 30, 2011
- 1,129
- 0
Hey everyone, I have/ had a situation with my house since I bought it a few years ago that has haunted me just about every "freezing" night. I would love to get some feedback, some ideas or help to isolate the problem or suggestions and ideas to circumvent the problem from rearing its ugly head and possibly causing more problems with expensive repairs.
This story goes back to winter of 2009, after the first couple nights of cold weather I realized I had a problem with freezing pipes. I am of the mindset that if its yours, you fix it. I am not a fan of paying a professional to do anything as I like to take my problems as my responsibility. It saves me money, gives me a sense of pride and heightened appreciation of ownership and plus I learn a little something in the process.
Well, I never had frozen pipes before (even in Ohio), more then likely because they were ran properly or had proper insulation. I figured the best place to begin was to try to start following the path of the pipes to determine where they were frozen. First thing I realized before I started was my hot was frozen, not cold and it flowed just fine. With that, I figured, it HAD to be AFTER the hot water tank. Not sure to this day if my logic is correct as sometimes common sense has little validity, but I digress.
I have gas for my water heater so it was placed in my garage for ventilation purposes. It was placed opposite of the doorway that leads to the garage/ leads to the house so that it would not get in your way entering/exiting the house, makes sense. The pipes were ran into the wall and I assumed ran into the attic and then across into the house. The exposed pipes on top of the heater were not insulated and therefore seemed like they could be the cause of the problem, I had a little notebook with me and was trying to take little notes here and there so when I was done with my exploring I could compound all the data I found and try to come up with a hypothesis as to why I was having the problem.
My next venture was up in my attic to see if I could see the lines coming up from the tank to try to find an additional source/or the source of my frozen pipes. Now another tid-bit of information about my house, my garage is on the side of the house, the back of the garage is the back of the garage and there is nothing behind it, it has its own roof, trusses, etc. For lack of better explanation its kind of glued to the side of the house. As I move into the garage portion of the attic I am disgusted to what I am seeing and surly feel like I found the culprit. The water lines are not only NOT insulated, but are running along side the edge of the garage where the effus (argh cannot find correct spelling of this word) is allowing ice-cold air to pass directly over the pipes into the attic. Furthermore, the attic is not insulated because its an attic and there is no living space in there.
I went to lowes to get some of that pipe insulation stuff and wrapped it around all the pipes in the attic, insulated the pipes going into the water heater and even knocked out a section of the wall in my garage to find more uninsulated pipe so I insulated the pipe in the wall as well.
The next night it got very cold, it froze on me again. Well the first fixing only cost me about $20 so I figured I would have another go at it and bump it up another notch. I rented a insulation blowing machine and with help from a friend of mine I blew about 16" deep of insulation in my attic, figured if I was going to do the one side, might as well do it all and have an insulated attic. It cost me less then $150 if I remember right, probably a couple years off my life because I probably inhaled some of that crap (even though it was the "green" type), and got really dusty. I felt good and felt like those pipes were going to be good and done. Just as Ron White puts it in his comedy routine... "I was wrrrroooonnng!"
At this point I figured it was time for me to stop playing Joe the plumber and call in a professional to assess the situation and it it fixed properly before I had a real issue. Before he could come, I did have a little mishap. One day my gf was going to work and woke me up, she said it looked like the sprinkler system sprung a leak in the front yard. HUH!?!?! I do not have a sprinkler system. Usually I only hop out of bed when its Christmas, however I leaped out of bed, put pants on so as not to offend the neighbors and ran out there to see a sheet of water pouring from my front yard. I ran over to the water meter box and it of course was full of frozen water, stuck my hand in there and had to start scooping out lots of mud that formed just to find the shut-off valve. After discovering its location I went and got a pair of pliers to shut the water off as I was not interested in cleaning more of my street off. Her dad came over a little later and we dug up the spot that seemed to be a problem. Here the feed pipe coming from the meter had separated at an elbow (assuming from the pressure build up of the frozen pipe). Also, it was funny because right where it happened there was already an indentation of the ground, almost making it seem like it had already been previously dug up and repaired. So we fixed that and all was well.
When the plumber came over, stupidly, I told him what I thought might have been the problem. That was the biggest mistake I think I could have made. He of course agreed with my assessment and gave me a couple different options. His first option was to reroute the pipes in the middle of the attic, that way they were away from the air blasting directly on them thus giving them less opportunity to freeze. This was going to cost me about $500 (I was contemplating doing this myself if I went this option), but I did not like this option because it almost reminded me of "mechanic in a bottle", a cheap fix that will give sub-par results. The second option was to relocate the water heater to the other corner but because of the doorway to put it outside the house in a weather-proof enclosure. I liked this idea but did NOT like the price. It was going to cost me about $2k for this option as he had to relocate the gas line as well. I then brought up and asked him about tank-less water heaters. He got all excited (probably because of the up-sell) and started talking to me about them, the benefits and whatnot. Well the price of the tank-less with installation was going to be a little over $3k BUT the gov't offers tax rebates on efficient stuff and it includes installation. After the new year (when I filed taxes) it was only going to cost me about $2200 so it cost about the same as relocating my old POS water heater but it was brand new and gave me infinite heat and I was doing the better of the options to get rid of my frozen pipes. I paid for the installation and a week later had it all installed. I thought I was set for the life of my owning this house and I would never have this problem again. Last year got cold and I ran into frozen pipes, I called him up and told him my problem. We could never coordinate a day that he could come because he said he needed to be there when they were frozen and things never worked out. I lost track of things and lack of it getting cold enough to freeze my pipes (or at least be frozen when I was home), it never got fixed. Well last night it got cold and I am currently running my hot water at a slow trickle because my water is frozen. Thankfully I do not have to go to work this morning or I would be in trouble.
Here is a new issue I caused with getting this tank-less water supply. I think its for safety reasons, but a tankless water heater does not "kick on" or heat water until a certain water-flow pressure is reached so by what I am doing now (just letting the water trickle) is simply keeping the water moving but not warming up the pipes where the frozen section is. This is an inherit design of water heaters that I did not realize or even think about when I was buying. Also, it never crossed my mind to have another problem.
Before I pay ding dong to come out here or some other ding dong to come out here and take more money from me I am reaching out to any of you. Hopefully I have provided enough information that you can try to come up with something to identify the problem. The feed line going into the house is obviously buried under the ground (could it still be freezing? (as I said I still have good flow with cold water so...?), it enters the house in between the house and the garage then shoots up into the "warm side" of the attic then shoots across the attic then into the "cold side" about 3 feet then instead of running in the wall of my attic it runs on the inside of the wall and out to the tank-less heater. All the piping on the cold side is insulated. I am totally puzzled and cannot figure out why I am constantly having these freezing issues.
Sorry for the uber-long post. I just wanted to make sure you all got enough background to be able to assess my situation. I understand without visually seeing or being here you cannot fully comprehend what I am dealing with but hopefully some ideas at least to finding out where exactly my problem is because it seems like my initial problem was not fixed. Either its still freezing there (with the limited piping that is left) or it was never there to start off with... ARGH!
This story goes back to winter of 2009, after the first couple nights of cold weather I realized I had a problem with freezing pipes. I am of the mindset that if its yours, you fix it. I am not a fan of paying a professional to do anything as I like to take my problems as my responsibility. It saves me money, gives me a sense of pride and heightened appreciation of ownership and plus I learn a little something in the process.
Well, I never had frozen pipes before (even in Ohio), more then likely because they were ran properly or had proper insulation. I figured the best place to begin was to try to start following the path of the pipes to determine where they were frozen. First thing I realized before I started was my hot was frozen, not cold and it flowed just fine. With that, I figured, it HAD to be AFTER the hot water tank. Not sure to this day if my logic is correct as sometimes common sense has little validity, but I digress.
I have gas for my water heater so it was placed in my garage for ventilation purposes. It was placed opposite of the doorway that leads to the garage/ leads to the house so that it would not get in your way entering/exiting the house, makes sense. The pipes were ran into the wall and I assumed ran into the attic and then across into the house. The exposed pipes on top of the heater were not insulated and therefore seemed like they could be the cause of the problem, I had a little notebook with me and was trying to take little notes here and there so when I was done with my exploring I could compound all the data I found and try to come up with a hypothesis as to why I was having the problem.
My next venture was up in my attic to see if I could see the lines coming up from the tank to try to find an additional source/or the source of my frozen pipes. Now another tid-bit of information about my house, my garage is on the side of the house, the back of the garage is the back of the garage and there is nothing behind it, it has its own roof, trusses, etc. For lack of better explanation its kind of glued to the side of the house. As I move into the garage portion of the attic I am disgusted to what I am seeing and surly feel like I found the culprit. The water lines are not only NOT insulated, but are running along side the edge of the garage where the effus (argh cannot find correct spelling of this word) is allowing ice-cold air to pass directly over the pipes into the attic. Furthermore, the attic is not insulated because its an attic and there is no living space in there.
I went to lowes to get some of that pipe insulation stuff and wrapped it around all the pipes in the attic, insulated the pipes going into the water heater and even knocked out a section of the wall in my garage to find more uninsulated pipe so I insulated the pipe in the wall as well.
The next night it got very cold, it froze on me again. Well the first fixing only cost me about $20 so I figured I would have another go at it and bump it up another notch. I rented a insulation blowing machine and with help from a friend of mine I blew about 16" deep of insulation in my attic, figured if I was going to do the one side, might as well do it all and have an insulated attic. It cost me less then $150 if I remember right, probably a couple years off my life because I probably inhaled some of that crap (even though it was the "green" type), and got really dusty. I felt good and felt like those pipes were going to be good and done. Just as Ron White puts it in his comedy routine... "I was wrrrroooonnng!"
At this point I figured it was time for me to stop playing Joe the plumber and call in a professional to assess the situation and it it fixed properly before I had a real issue. Before he could come, I did have a little mishap. One day my gf was going to work and woke me up, she said it looked like the sprinkler system sprung a leak in the front yard. HUH!?!?! I do not have a sprinkler system. Usually I only hop out of bed when its Christmas, however I leaped out of bed, put pants on so as not to offend the neighbors and ran out there to see a sheet of water pouring from my front yard. I ran over to the water meter box and it of course was full of frozen water, stuck my hand in there and had to start scooping out lots of mud that formed just to find the shut-off valve. After discovering its location I went and got a pair of pliers to shut the water off as I was not interested in cleaning more of my street off. Her dad came over a little later and we dug up the spot that seemed to be a problem. Here the feed pipe coming from the meter had separated at an elbow (assuming from the pressure build up of the frozen pipe). Also, it was funny because right where it happened there was already an indentation of the ground, almost making it seem like it had already been previously dug up and repaired. So we fixed that and all was well.
When the plumber came over, stupidly, I told him what I thought might have been the problem. That was the biggest mistake I think I could have made. He of course agreed with my assessment and gave me a couple different options. His first option was to reroute the pipes in the middle of the attic, that way they were away from the air blasting directly on them thus giving them less opportunity to freeze. This was going to cost me about $500 (I was contemplating doing this myself if I went this option), but I did not like this option because it almost reminded me of "mechanic in a bottle", a cheap fix that will give sub-par results. The second option was to relocate the water heater to the other corner but because of the doorway to put it outside the house in a weather-proof enclosure. I liked this idea but did NOT like the price. It was going to cost me about $2k for this option as he had to relocate the gas line as well. I then brought up and asked him about tank-less water heaters. He got all excited (probably because of the up-sell) and started talking to me about them, the benefits and whatnot. Well the price of the tank-less with installation was going to be a little over $3k BUT the gov't offers tax rebates on efficient stuff and it includes installation. After the new year (when I filed taxes) it was only going to cost me about $2200 so it cost about the same as relocating my old POS water heater but it was brand new and gave me infinite heat and I was doing the better of the options to get rid of my frozen pipes. I paid for the installation and a week later had it all installed. I thought I was set for the life of my owning this house and I would never have this problem again. Last year got cold and I ran into frozen pipes, I called him up and told him my problem. We could never coordinate a day that he could come because he said he needed to be there when they were frozen and things never worked out. I lost track of things and lack of it getting cold enough to freeze my pipes (or at least be frozen when I was home), it never got fixed. Well last night it got cold and I am currently running my hot water at a slow trickle because my water is frozen. Thankfully I do not have to go to work this morning or I would be in trouble.
Here is a new issue I caused with getting this tank-less water supply. I think its for safety reasons, but a tankless water heater does not "kick on" or heat water until a certain water-flow pressure is reached so by what I am doing now (just letting the water trickle) is simply keeping the water moving but not warming up the pipes where the frozen section is. This is an inherit design of water heaters that I did not realize or even think about when I was buying. Also, it never crossed my mind to have another problem.
Before I pay ding dong to come out here or some other ding dong to come out here and take more money from me I am reaching out to any of you. Hopefully I have provided enough information that you can try to come up with something to identify the problem. The feed line going into the house is obviously buried under the ground (could it still be freezing? (as I said I still have good flow with cold water so...?), it enters the house in between the house and the garage then shoots up into the "warm side" of the attic then shoots across the attic then into the "cold side" about 3 feet then instead of running in the wall of my attic it runs on the inside of the wall and out to the tank-less heater. All the piping on the cold side is insulated. I am totally puzzled and cannot figure out why I am constantly having these freezing issues.
Sorry for the uber-long post. I just wanted to make sure you all got enough background to be able to assess my situation. I understand without visually seeing or being here you cannot fully comprehend what I am dealing with but hopefully some ideas at least to finding out where exactly my problem is because it seems like my initial problem was not fixed. Either its still freezing there (with the limited piping that is left) or it was never there to start off with... ARGH!
