As per title, water is dripping from cold water pipes under a worksurface in cupboards.
After drying these pipes water collects on these, finally dripping on items below. Its not doing the cabinets any good.
Currently there is no insulation and the pipes are bare.
Is there any surface treatment or form of insulation that will reduce the dripping?
They drip because the water in them is cold and the air around them is humid, so the moisture condenses (but I guess you realise that). I doubt that there's any surface treatment, but lagging with conventional pipe lagging should do the trick, provided you don't leave any bare pipe exposed. Stuff like this
Thanks for the idea.
I was thinking along similar lines but this must be a common problem but not aware of an equally common solution.
too much water vapour in the air. Reduce it at source by changing cooking habits. If you can't peruade folk to do that then a dehumidifier would solve it.
Lagging would need to be airtight & vapour impermeable or it could very slowly saturate & moulder, depending on how much of the time condensation is occurring.
NT
Only a small possibility but I once came across someone who suffered excess condensation on a cold water pipe, it supplied the normal kitchen cold and appliances but also an outside tap. This tap leaked a fair bit and the householder not being on a meter just lived with it as it flowed down a drain. Once the water from the incoming main got colder in the autumn added to the heating going on the constant through put of cold water caused a lot of dripping. Probably removed some heat from the house as well.
G.Harman
keep warm moist air away from cold pipe.
- put something vapour proof around the pipe - reduce the humidity in the kitchen
one, the other, or both.
I did wonder just how humid and hot the kitchen is?.Do you have a lot of people in the house, maybe some kind of device that chucks out warm damp air, like a dryer with no external outlet, maybe a small leak in a hot central heating pipe somewhere?
Other than that good ventilation and some lagging I suppose but really unless its an industrial kitchen cooking most of the day, it does seem a little odd to me. Brian
In theory yes but in practice the grey foam lagging I put on the cold pipes under the kitchen sink nine years ago has been fine. I wrapped the lagging in gaffer tape to minimise air gaps but it's far from airtight.
The temperature of the exposed surface of the brass stopcock is currently 9 deg.C and the room temperature is 18. Even with a decent relative humidity of 55% the dew point would be 9 deg C and condensation would occur. The RH here is generally around 60% and the stopcock handle is noticeably wet throughout the winter months but there's no sign of any problem from the rest of the pipework.
I solved a similar problem in a previous kitchen a similar way. It was fine.
then it's non-condensing enough of the time to dry off as well as get damp. The problem happens when it's not.
NT
The foam lagging will only hold water and become saturated if it has an open cell structure. Even this cheapie lagging is closed-cell, so as long as the OP seals the joins with gaffer or duct tape, as suggested by MC, it will be fine.
If Fred's room temperature and cold water temp are the same as everyone else's (which they probably are) then other people would get his condensation problem on their bare pipes. But usually they don't. As you say, it could be high humidity in his kitchen.
As you say - a decent closed cell insulation to reduce the amount of warm damp air that can get onto the pipe.
Pop some insulation around it and tape the seam - or use some of this:
which has a built in sticky strip (it's a type I'm going to use for ease of application).
But really, any closed cell foam lagging taped up so warm air can't get to the pipe will do the job.
Depends how much pipe work (and whether it is ptfe or copper) located inside the house and thus warmed up a few degrees before reaching the kitchen.
Maybe this gives an excuse to go and buy Lidl's infra red thermometer for a giveaway ?13 in stores this week.
I got one a while ago and use it to check the temperature of food from the microwave. Radiators too to see how they are heating. PC components. Food in the freezer. You name it. No doubt cold water pipes as well!
It's such a great gadget I'm amost inclined to buy another although I have no idea what I would do with the extra one.
Wonder if it uses the same adhesive as comes on the rolls of 3mm thick armaflex tape ? Before I retired I frequently used that for sealing gaps between sections of lagging, when dry the adhesive sticks it like shit to blanket but any moisture on the joining surface made it useless. Anyone putting the slit lagging on a condensating pipe should dry the pipe well first to minimise the risk of any moisture getting on the sealing face.
G.Harman
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