advice on water pipes for outbuilding needed.

I took some water pipes (both hot and cold) from the house to the outbuilding. From the house, plastic pipe leaves the building. it is buried only 150mm max, maybe less, covered in wickes 13mm lagging. It was not buried further as the drain got in the way and crossed my path.

inside the outbuilding is single concrete block with 25mm rockwool insulation, then plasterboard and plaster. the pipe (copper) is attaced to the plasterboard covered again with 13mm wickes lagging.

Is this sufficient to leave the water running (is not isolated). Will this prevent freezing? One one side, there is a toilet also. I will monitor regularly to see if the cistern water freezes.

Many thanks in advance.

Reply to
lavenders19
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lavenders19:

You'll need to, if it freezes it will probably crack the cistern. The bowl will crack too, if the water freezes.

Reply to
Chris Bacon

Damn.. not a good way to test if it will freeze then. Hopefully it wasn't cold enough last night to cause it to freeze.. I will have a check tonight and see how it got on.

On the other hand, i guess i had to do some sort of test as it would have cracked sometime if it was freezing. Should have left some water in the shed before i installed it yesterday.

Reply to
lavenders19

On 6 Mar 2006 02:29:04 -0800 someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote this:-

If the pipe is plastic then presumably it will tolerate occasional freezing.

Lagging cannot add heat to anything. It only slows down heat loss.

At what point does the plastic pipe become copper? Why not continue the plastic pipe to the tap.

It might prevent the supply freezing. However, what it may do is cause the drains to freeze up, with the result that you have a large block of ice to deal with later.

In which case it may crack.

Is this something you intend to do permanently or just for a little while?

Far better to have some heating in the outbuilding, such as a tubular heater.

Reply to
David Hansen

David, i was only going to monitor on very cold days so very irregular. the pipes change to copper once fully inside the outbuilding.

Does lagging slow down cold penetration? Presumably if a pipe is going to freeze it will take longer if lagged?

Is the tubular heater expensive to run. What would be the running costs either daily/weekly etc to have it permanently on?

I only ask as I have access to the outbuilding for storing my own things, but the house is rented out. The electricity supply comes from the house, so i don't want to "abuse" it.

Reply to
lavenders19

On 6 Mar 2006 05:51:18 -0800 someone who may be snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote this:-

Yes. However, lagging only delays the freezing.

Connect one up to a thermostat set at say 5C and it will then come on and off as necessary. How much it costs to run depends on the tariff, building and the weather. They start at around 100W, so if one was on for an average of 10 hours a day in winter that would be

1 unit a day. I suspect that a fridge uses more electricity than that a day.
Reply to
David Hansen

Yes, but if your lagging isn't waterproof it will loose much of its lagging effect once it becomes wet with groundwater.

About 60W per foot of tubular, I think. If it's not too late it might be worth considering pipe warming tape as well.

You could install a submeter and credit your electricity use against the tenant's rent, but the meter will probably cost you more.

In the meantime, chucking some antifreeze (or salt) in the cistern and bowl when not in use may save the sanitaryware.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

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