High and dry again

[captpackrat]

I was in the middle of doing my first load of laundry when the water stopped again.  At first I thought there was something wrong with the washing machine because it just sat there, making a funny noise.  Fortunately the water ran out just before it would have normally switched off, so I was able to trick the machine into continuing with the rinse

Comments

[iraffa]

The deep ground will naturally be warm all winter. It's just a matter of keeping the nasty cold air away from the pipes. I have a similar situation with the crawl space under my house. Lots of pipes. I normally like to let some fresh air circulate under there, but when it gets cold, I close it up. I got a cheap remote radio digital thermometer ($10) so I can watch the temperature underneath. Overall, insulation is your best friend. R-5 is a bit light. Stack it for R-15 or more.

[captpackrat]

The basement here is heated and when I went down there, it was about 55°F. The only pipes that aren't heated is about 10 feet of pipe about 5 feet underground (which I believe are insulated), and the pipes inside the well box, which is a concrete bunker extending down about 10 feet below the surface. We hung a 100 Watt light bulb down there to warm it up in case icing was the problem. The insulation was just to help the box heat up faster and to minimize heat lost through the steel manhole cover.