Frozen well

[enjoytheride]

Hi all, we live in Indiana. We lost all the water to our barns yesterday, when it didn’t get above 13 for two days. Previously all the water sources worked just fine. We have an insulated and heated well house.

The person renting this property told us he lost water to the barns every year when it got this cold and he kept a 55 gallon drum of water in the heated lounge as a precaution. Luckily I did that as well. After whatever was frozen thawed he said it was always fine. We have not had any issues with the water pressure and some of the hydrants are 300 feet from the well.

Should we assume that a pipe wasn’t buried deep enough going from the well house to the split off? We lost water at all three hydrants and in the bathroom. Or could it still be something in the well house? We probably have it way too warm in there already.

[4LeafCloverFarm]

Doubt its your well/pump house, since its well heated. My guess is that the supply line going off to your hydrants/barn isn’t deep enough somewhere. You do have to be careful not to burn out your well pump, pressure switch and other mechanical parts to your well system when you get a freeze. The well can sometimes think it needs to keep pumping and you don’t want that! But with our equipment, you can hear it when it’s pumping, so we can tell if its trying to pump water when it shouldn’t be.

When our pipe freezes under our driveway (coming from our 1,500 gallon holding tank into the house), we turn the whole system off until the ground thaws enough for the water to come back on. However, we can dunk a bucket into the holding tank to get water and the frost free hydrant at the holding tank still works (typically) when the system is turned on, then we just turn it off again. Our actual well is over 1/4 mile from the house.

[clanter]

my guess you have a frozen pipe that runs from the well house that is not buried deep enough… There usually is a way to run water at the pump house so you can check the wellhead.

We used to live in Kentucky and left after two winters when the water lines froze, I still can remember the troubles we had.

[Cat_Tap]

Whenever my cistern is only half full ice forms and gets into the line. I just order a load of water to top it up and within half an hour the water is running again.

I don’t know whether this would apply to a well also.

[Pennywell_Bay]

Wells are typically deep enough not to freeze, so it would be a pipe. The easiest solution to keep the line(s) open would be a slow drip captured in to a big trough, but even that may not work if it gets in to negative territory.

[enjoytheride]

Thanks guys. We had water this week Wednesday am when it hit 40 and we had 2 inches of rain on top of the snow and ice. Yay! Then we lost water again yesterday when it stayed below 12 degrees for two days. Boo!

Next week the weather forecasters are predicting “historic lows” with windchills as low as -45 BOOOOOO so it looks like it’s going to be a minute.

We do have water at the pump so it does appear to be the main supply line. It looks like we (or him rather) can add a shut off value in the well house and we can hook up a long hose every few days to fill the trough. Oh Joy. Horses.

[clanter]

some one else on this board had a similar problem, they either used or considered using an internal heat tape that is run inside the existing piping …this was something I never knew existing so have not ever used it but it may be a solution

it is a product similar to this

https://heatline.com/retro-line

something like this may be cheaper than replacing the water line itself

[S1969]

That seems very odd for Indiana and only 13 degrees…I would expect that the supply line would have been quite deep enough…mine is 5’ below ground (I believe) and has never frozen despite it being <13 every single winter, sometimes below 0 for weeks at a time.

I would definitely consider having this excavated over the summer to investigate/replace. If you lived in Florida I could understand that it was unexpected, but Indiana isn’t exactly tropical.

[enjoytheride]

@S1969

That seems very odd for Indiana and only 13 degrees…I would expect that the supply line would have been quite deep enough…mine is 5’ below ground (I believe) and has never frozen despite it being <13 every single winter, sometimes below 0 for weeks at a time.

I would definitely consider having this excavated over the summer to investigate/replace. If you lived in Florida I could understand that it was unexpected, but Indiana isn’t exactly tropical.

Nope so I’m guessing they didn’t bury the supply line deep enough. I’m not sure how they managed with 19 horses on the property and cattle back in the day but maybe it’s a recent issue. The renter who lived here before we bough the farm said that he always kept a 55gallon barrel of water in the lounge. When we installed a wash rack this spring we did discover that the bathroom pipes weren’t insulated and had broken at some point then had been shut off. So we replaced the pipes, wrapped them, and added insulation. Just doesn’t help when the main line freezes.