I need some input. I have my own farm, about 35 acres. Have three outside hydrants for the horses and several more around the rest of the farm. I cut the water off inside my barn about two weeks ago due to the extreme cold. Everything was find until Tuesday evening. When I went to get the horses in and feed, there was no water. Water worked fine Tuesday morning. It was not terribly cold Tuesday, maybe 40 degrees. Ever since I have no water to these three hydrants. The water works everywhere else. There are no signs of a water break. It is 66 degrees today. It was 50 yesterday and in the 40’s for a few days before that. I have a bad back and am having to haul water to my horses and it is killing me literally. But why won’t my water come back? Why is there not some proof of a water main break? And why do I have water everywhere else? I am going to have to get out of the farm ownership business after this terrible winter. I physically and mentally don’t have the capacity for this. I live in Virginia, We had about 2 solid weeks of very cold weather and some on Monday/Tuesday. Maybe the ice had something to do with this but should it not have thawed out by now? There are no trees all open land. It has been raining also for two days.
Is your water meter the type that you can see it counting the water used? Have you looked at it to see if you are slowing all kind of water when nothing is on?
I don’t have a meter, I have my own well. The water pressure seems to be normal everywhere else.
Sounds like you’ll probably need to get a plumber out. It’s going to get cold again this weekend so I’d call asap. Sorry you’re having this trouble!
I don’t think a plumber is going to help here unless he can run a back-hoe. My plumbing in the house works fine. The plumbing in the barn is turned off. My outside faucets are dead. But only some of them. That is what I don’t understand. It’s so warm and has been for days - if they were frozen they would thawed by now. There are no signs of a water main break at least not yet. But the ground is not frozen now. Just makes zero sense. None whatsoever. Was hoping maybe this has happened to someone else.
Make sure everything is turned off go to the pump house … can you hear water running? If so then there may be a broken pipe
Our hydrants have shut offs for each branch water line so that we can isolate a series of hydrates if needed
Not sure if I understand everything.
"Have three outside hydrants for the horses and several more around the rest of the farm. I cut the water off inside my barn about two weeks ago due to the extreme cold. Everything was find until Tuesday evening.
The shut off valve for all the hydrants is “sides the barn”. Does this shut off just the supply lines to the hydrants around the farm and any that are in the barn? Or does this just shut the barn hydrant?
“Water worked fine Tuesday morning. It was not terribly cold Tuesday, maybe 40 deg”
What worked fine? You turned the water supply back on and all the hydrants worked? Or just the one/s in and or around the barn?
What part of Virginia are you in? It’s a big state with diverse average winter temps, conditions.
Did you have the outside supply lines dug/installed and the hydrants? Do you know the frost depth for the area. Are you sure all of the lines were trenched to below the frost depth to meet code?
Do the various hydrants branch off a main line coming from the barn well, supply? Or do they each have their individual supply line and shut off valve?
This sort of information is pretty important to make suggestions from cyber-land. Important if you bring in a plumber to cut down on the cost of figuring out what is going on. .
How deep are the lines to the hydrants buried?
I had this issue one night last winter - flipped up handle aaaannnnd no water. For me, it was a simple solution. Because the temp had dropped so quickly, I had forgotten to turn up the heater inside the pump house. The line that goes to hydrant is heat taped and buried 12 feet deep so I very seriously doubted it could be frozen underground. However, that line has about 3 feet excess hose that is above ground where it is hooked to pump and exposed to the temperature. The line was frozen totally solid. We cranked the baseboard heater up and put another heater in overnight. The next morning, it was thawed and I had learned my lesson.
You shut the water off inside the barn, but were using the hydrants to water instead? Then the hydrants suddenly stopped working on Tuesday evening???
Can you turn on the water in the barn to see if it works? Sounds like ther is either something turned off or a break. Your sure the water for the barn is on a separate line then the hydrants? Do you have multiple places to turn water off? One you might have missed? Can you back track all the faucets that aren’t working to see if they are all connected to the same line?
Feel for you, I was hauling buckets of water for 3 horses for 2 weeks there too. My thought, it can take longer than one thinks for the ground to unfreeze.
You are close enough to me, we had an extremely unusually long, unusually cold snap there - maybe something is just still frozen?
If you can hang in there, the problem might resolve over time? Of course this means some of your piping is above the frost line, but hopefully we don’t have cold like that very often…
Editing to add, temporary fix, can you string connecting hoses from house spigot? Be sure to disconnect & coil hoses after use - I bring them inside for a few hours before I hook them up again. Not ideal, but beats bucket watering.
Yeah we have been without water since New Year’s Day. Line from the well to the house is frozen and the barn line comes off the house line. So we haul water every day using the tractor or truck…filling up all the 7 gallon jugs from the well and driving it up to the trough - at least we have power so the water heaters are working! Probably won’t have water till April at this rate either…it was -1 this morning!
I had a similar type issue but mine was obviously a cracked pipe in my ground “box” where I have a shutoff to the barn water just below where it T’s off from my house line. When the plumber came, we chatted in general about hydrants - he noticed one of mine seemed to be installed “high” but was still working even in the extreme cold. He said I was lucky and he mentioned that hydrants that freeze/stop working is often due to the digout below the ground not being large enough in the ground - or they are not installed down in the ground enough and don’t drain back deep enough. I guess there is a gravel “area” below the hydrant. If it’s not large enough below it, thermal heat cannot build down there below the frost line. I am wondering if some of your hydrants froze below ground - not all. That’s the only thing I can think of. Also, if there is some type of “T” line with another shutoff, that area might have frozen or cracked.
Last year the day I left for FL I decided I’d do the girl who works for us a favor and fill the troughs before we hit the road. Flipped up the handle on the hydrant, and…no water. Ummmmm. Went to another hydrant. No water. uhhhhhh----called the plumber/well guy. He came and checked it out. And had bad news for me…the pump 700 feet down needed replacing. Off I went to FL…and I’m still paying off the pump (4K), and this year I’m NOT going to FL.
While some of that advice is true to a certain extent and yes the “drain field” around the bottom of the hydrant is more important to than a lot of installers take into consideration. DIYers and “plumbers”. But the hydrant isn’t always a tell tail of how deep the hydrant was installed. They come in different lengths depending on the front line depth and the users needs. When I install them I use the tall ones and some are set deeper than needed because the trenching was easier in that location. I don’t think any of the 6 hydrants on the farm are all the same height above grade. But all are set at or below the frost line for the region. Some people like the hydrant head to only be a foot or 2 above grade. So they install ones with a shorter stand pipe.
I have installed lots of them. The frost in SE PA is around 32". I try and go to 36". But the trenching doesn’t always go as well nor easily as I would like. I have some hydrant supply lines that are shallow, under 30". But they hydrant is usually set below 32". The majority of lines run under areas that are fully exposed to the sun. So the solar gain helps, keeps the ground from freezing deep. When we get a prolonged cold snap of single digit temps.
I have had 1 hydrant freeze up on me after a couple of weeks of single digit temps. Not sure if it was at the bottom, coupling which is usually the suspect area because of the cold thermal bridge caused by the standpipe. Or somewhere along the supply line. where it Ts from the main line that supply the other hydrants on that side of the farm. The other hydrants on the line worked fine. The one thing that is different on the 300+ feet of the line that supplies that hydrant runs several feet from the board fence line on the north side. The fence line/boards block the low winter sun along the whole run and the hydrant stand pipe set near the fence. That line was trenched at around the same depth as the other lines. The only difference being the ground this line is buried under get little to no sun. Fortunately it only froze up once during an usual long cold snap. I advise people to wrap some heat tape around the supply line, coupling and up the buried stand pipe. For $30 and a little extra effort it may come in handy. I also think its worth painting the stand pipe black for a little extra solar gain from the sun hitting it in the cold of winter. No idea if this brings anything to the table or night. But for a $3 can of black spray paint it can’t hurt.
Murphy’s law. But $4 grand to replace a pump? I guess your well guy knew he had you by the you know what. A 1 1/2 hp deep well pump costs $500 to $1,500+ depending on one’s needs. If a new pump control box is needed another $75±. Pulling up 700 feet of supply line and wire can be a PITA if one depending on one’s set up, equipment available. But doable even for a DIY with basic equipment. Can be done by hand, but easier with 2 people. Once the pump is out and it doesn’t take that long to get out even with 700 feet. It only takes basic hand tools and about 15 minutes to swap out the pump. Another 15 minutes or so to swap out the control box. The whole job for a well company will maybe take 2 hours at best. Those guys laughed all the way to the bank.
I understand not all people are DIYers nor even those of us that are will always want to be one. For me it depends on the “hassle factor”. The cost to pay someone else for the hassle. I know what these things should cost. I am happy to pay something reasonable for someone else to save the “hassle”. But if I get quotes that are just plan rape, rob and pillaging I’ll do it my self. Most of the time. If “Murphy” allows, lol.
I bet this was in Southhampton. lol. Though Middleburg would be on the expensive side depending on how long your driveway into the farm is. These guys like to “size up” horse farm owners, lol.
Curious, 700 feet is a deep well. Where is it located? On the Island? (Long Island).
I remember mine froze the same time as yours! OP, if you had a long cold snap and something froze, it could take a long time to thaw. A couple of warm days, or even a week, may not do it. Hopefully if that is the case it will thaw before spring!
