Frozen pipes
Wherever you have exposed/uninsulated water pipes running through an area of your home which isn't insulated, you're at risk of the water inside the pipes freezing. This can include the pipework inside your home when you switch off your central heating due to going on holiday as well as pipes running through garages, lofts and roof spaces, under suspended wooden floors on the ground floor, cellars and outbuildings. The types of pipework susceptible to freezing are varied, including pipes belonging to central heating systems, the hot and cold water pipework to the taps on your basins, baths, showers, WCs, sinks or boiler condensate pipes.
How to stop pipes from freezing
The best method of preventing against frozen pipes is
to ensure first of all that your pipes don't run through an unheated area,
however, this won't always be possible. If you're going away for a short period,
consider leaving your heating system on a timed function and set it to the
lowest temperature on the thermostat. For longer periods, remember to drain
down the water from your property's various systems. A quality plumber will be
able to do this for you and can meet you on your return to fill the systems
again. Pipe insulation will help to slow down the rate of freezing but won't
prevent it alone.
Frost thermostats
These work by measuring and sending the temperature of the
air around your boiler back to a controller to turn on the boiler at low
temperatures, however, it offers no protection to hot and cold water pipes. Trace heating
This involves an electrical cable attached to a pipe, which is then wired to a transformer and attached to the electrical supply. The pipe and cable are then covered in pipe insulation and the cable is turned on and off by an external frost thermostat, normally when the temperature falls below 2.5 - 3˚C. This process is basically the equivalent of placing a pipe in its own mini electric blanket so that it's warm enough not to freeze but not warm enough to heat water above 2.5˚C.Condensate pipes
Condensing boilers can produce about 1 litre of condensate water in an hour. Should condensate pipes freeze, it can cause significant problems for your boiler as well as severely damaging your appliance. There are several methods of preventing your condensate pipes from freezing:
- Increase the size of the pipes from 20mm to 32 or 40
- Fit a high grade of pipe insulation to the pipes
- As a last measure, you may want to fit trace heating to the
pipes
If your condensing boiler has stopped working and the
outside temperature has dropped below 0˚C then there's a chance your
condensate pipe may be frozen, meaning you should call a Gas Safe
Registered engineer.
Protecting your pipes from damaging winter weather will
involve some expenses initially, however, the money you could save in the long
run certainly makes investing in pipe protection worthwhile. Search for a
quality plumber or gas engineer in your local area via the APHC website at
http://www.aphc.co.uk/find_an_installer.asp.
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