Calling all home improvement DIY'ers!!!

[Tundra_10]

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!

[Mister B]

I'm no plumber and it's hard to say without actually seeing your setup it in person, but ideally any plumbing that is in your house should not be run in unconditioned spaces (unheated). If you do have any plumbing running through unconditioned spaces and you have access to it, I would probably try and get some electrical heat tape specifically for pipes and wrap the pipes in heat tape and then wrap that in pipe insulation. The heat tape will need an electrical source to plug into, but it runs on a thermostat and once it gets down to a certain temperature it kicks on to keep your pipes from freezing. That would probably be the cheapest fix at this point short of moving all of your plumbing and water heater to a new heated location (if that was even possible)

[Tundra_10]

The piping was already ran and relocated when the tank-less water heater was installed. So I think at this time, I have the minimal amount of piping possible to be exposed to less then ideal conditions. I am up for anything and will try any viable option. I never heard of such a thing and will now be looking into it. At this point I want it fixed, I want to figure out where the problem is and stop it from happening. Right now I would love to take a shower and get washed up but I cannot because the water is probably just above freezing coming from the shower.

Here is another funny issue I have just found in my spare bathroom the hot and cold is just tricking from the shower but the sink in the bathroom allows the cold to flow just fine and if I put it on cold it allows my tub to flow just find and other sinks to flow the cold but not hot water. I know this because the indicator on my water heater does not show it is kicking the power on to heat the water.

[dad07]

I'm no plumber and it's hard to say without actually seeing your setup it in person, but ideally any plumbing that is in your house should not be run in unconditioned spaces (unheated). If you do have any plumbing running through unconditioned spaces and you have access to it, I would probably try and get some electrical heat tape specifically for pipes and wrap the pipes in heat tape and then wrap that in pipe insulation. The heat tape will need an electrical source to plug into, but it runs on a thermostat and once it gets down to a certain temperature it kicks on to keep your pipes from freezing. That would probably be the cheapest fix at this point short of moving all of your plumbing and water heater to a new heated location (if that was even possible)

with the heat tape......both water pipes should have insulation on them not just the cold side(at least thats how I read it in your post)...it could be freezing from outlet side of tank to house.

good luck man...hope you find the problem.

[Mister B]

You may even have pipes that are ran inside an exterior wall of your house that you have no access to that could even be freezing. It's hard to tell.

[Bigpat]

I work in a factory and was just talking to a maintenance worker, he said he has seen a setup with a recirculating line basically the water not moving is an issue and he has seen people run a line from like a far bathroom from water heater and it just brijgs the water back to hot water tank in a continuous system, eliminating frozen pipes and the dreaded warmup time for your hot water.. im not sure if you could do this with a tankless system but if you call ding dong back its something to pick his brain and maybe diy.. im going to google it now ill post a link if i find one

[Bigpat]

Prevent Frozen Pipes check it out... sounds like a good idea

[Tundra_10]

with the heat tape......both water pipes should have insulation on them not just the cold side(at least thats how I read it in your post)...it could be freezing from outlet side of tank to house.

good luck man...hope you find the problem.

Thanks man. The pipe leading to the heater and coming out both have insulation on them, well they do since the new heater was installed but it seems that it was either not enough or that was not the original problem.

You may even have pipes that are ran inside an exterior wall of your house that you have no access to that could even be freezing. It's hard to tell.

I was thinking this and am worried about this. Thank you for the electrical tape idea though. I am going to buy 2 rolls of the 18ft and I think that will be enough for my feed line going into the tank and coming out going back to my house. Will only cost me about $70 so even if it does not fully fix the issue it should give me a definite if I am poking around the correct spot for the issue. Thank you again! That helped out huge!

I work in a factory and was just talking to a maintenance worker, he said he has seen a setup with a recirculating line basically the water not moving is an issue and he has seen people run a line from like a far bathroom from water heater and it just brijgs the water back to hot water tank in a continuous system, eliminating frozen pipes and the dreaded warmup time for your hot water.. im not sure if you could do this with a tankless system but if you call ding dong back its something to pick his brain and maybe diy.. im going to google it now ill post a link if i find one

I appreciate you asking around and if you can find a link that would be awesome but I would be curious as you pointed out how a tank-less system would work since I never actually have hot-water on standby. I only have it when I turn the faucet on to a certain flow-rate.

[Tundra_10]

Prevent Frozen Pipes check it out... sounds like a good idea

wait... so this thing heats up the water? If it does and I do not have to worry about the flow rate to kick on my hot water tank, holy crap I want this! I gotta do more research. Dude this is awesome and seems it would be even easier then the heat tape (which still does not sound bad and is very inexpensive). However this seems like it will negate any sort of problems I might have anywhere in my system without having to "troubleshoot"

[dad07]

Tundra Is your house part on a slab or crawl space? I'm just thinking here.