i am approaching my first winter with my horses at home. Just wondering how to get them water without freezing my pipes etc. I am willing to buy whatever is needed… it gets pretty cold here (Maine) up to -20 degrees F. I have no problem storing a hose inside but will my outside water spicket freeze? I’m so lost- SOS!
If your spigots are on your house, attached to your plumbing, then yes, they’ll freeze. Your house heat keeps them warm in the walls & basement, but once that uninsulated pipe goes through your foundation and the faucet head is exposed to the weather. The only way to have a faucet that won’t freeze in New England in the winter is to have a frost free hydrant installed on an underground water line – like, the line that goes from your well or city water supply to your house, or barn.
Hydrants have the on/off valve below the frost line – around 4’ deep – and have an old-fashioned looking handle you operate at about waist height. When you turn them off, the water is shut off below ground and the water in pipe up to the handle drains back down – so there’s no standing water to freeze.
My well is right at the back door to my house and I had a hydrant installed directly into the well cap. The water pressure is awesome. This is probably not up to code and/or slightly crazy, so I’m not recommending it. Just saying it works like nobody’s business if you have a lotta hose lengths between house & barn :lol:.
Lots of advice on winter-water here on these threads. If you power in your barn, there are stock tank heaters and heated buckets. Without power, insulation still goes a long way towards keeping horse water in liquid form, especially if you add hot water at night. If you’re running a hose from your house, there are those collapsible hoses that are easier to collect – but often break. I use hoses in good weather, and in the winter, I use a 35 gallon water tank in the back of a Gator – I fill it at the house, drive it to the barn, and fill buckets with a hose from the tank. It has a pump I can plug into the 12v socket on the Gator, but, gravity works pretty well, too. Search the threads here – this is just an overview.
You have time to install frost-free hydrants-- that’s the only way to go, IMO. Your spigot WILL freeze, and even if you wrap that pipe and spigot with heat tape or something to keep it from doing that, managing hoses all winter is miserable. The expandable hoses are easier to carry around and store–may not last more than one season, but worth it, IMO. And let’s say you have protected your spigot-- in your climate, like mine, you will have days where the hose freezes while you’re in the middle of running it. There are lots of mid-Atlantic peeps on this board who have never experienced how fast water freezes in -20 temps.
Seriously, before the ground freezes solid, just make the investment to trench in some pipe below the frost line and install one frost-free hydrant. Save yourself the almost-inevitable headache of having your spigot freeze, and then hauling buckets from inside your house.
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I would add that not only install a frost free hydrant, but tench on and install an automatic waterer. After years of having no running water in the barn of my childhood, I was completely done with the worry and drudgery of watering horses. The first horse related work I had on my farm was the installation of an automatic horse waterer. It has a submersibile heater and is simple to repair. Best thing ever and so worth the expense. The original waterer I installed is going strong after 17 years and I never have had to roll out a hose in the winter time.
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Plus one to the hydrant and auto waterer. Hoses are a pain.
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primary reason we moved from Kentucky were the winters of the late 1970s… minus 20 is no fun when taking care of horses
a cup of water will freeze instantly if thrown into the air
left the r out… horses are a pain
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We use heated buckets in the barn, a plug heater in the tank outside, and an awesome heated hose to fill those items with. We also have a frost free hydrant which was put in about 3 years ago. Prior to that we wrapped the pipe in heat tape and that worked most of the time but we are in Kansas and it doesn’t get as cold here as it does where you are. I really do recommend the heated hose - I plug it in when I get up to the barn and by the time I am done feeding it is ready to go.
This is precisely why I moved to Florida to have my own farm. :lol::no:
In Ohio, one BO wrapped the hydrant in insulating foam and heat tape, worked pretty well. But, I have to say, -20 °F I think you’re basically out of luck to prevent freezing. It’d probably be best to also have a plug-in electric heater you can put right next to the spigot when it freezes, to unfreeze it.
I don’t know how far north you are, but if you can, look at installing a heated Nelson unit. My BO put 7 of them in years ago and they are terrific. Very reliable and the horses have continuous access to water at a comfortable temperature. We haven’t had a problem with them freezing in well-below zero weather except on a couple of occasions when a part needed to be replaced.
We have hydrants and there are spigots on the house. Of course both can freeze when it’s extremely cold for a prolonged period. Tubs had plug-in heaters but that doesn’t guaranty that the water won’t freeze. The hoses were in the doghouse entry to the cellar and we had to drag them all over the place, coil them back up and put them in the cellar.
If you do go with the frost-free hydrants do as much as you can to insulate them all the way down. If you do the Nelson, make sure to ground. We had one problem with stray current a few years ago, but other than that no real problems. I like knowing my horse has unlimited water year-round that’s clean and the right temperature.
If you’re truly willing to do/spent whatever, just order a Bar-Bar-A Horse Drinker now.
Granted, I’m in the south but when it does get that cold, you have NO worries at all. Water is the same temp all year round. Nothing to dump, scrub or fish dead critters out of. NO freezing. Best of all: No electricity needed.
Putting in a Bar-Bar-A was some of the best money I spent on my farm… peace of mind is priceless.
If you’re truly ready to spend what you must: Don’t dink around. Just get a Bar-Bar- A Horse Drinker
No worries, no freezing, no dumping or scrubbing. No critters committing suicide in the trough. Best of all, no electricity needed.
Another vote for trench in a frost free hydrant and auto waterer now. If you do both at once the install could be pretty reasonable. Time is ticking for installation in ME but you will be so much happier. Hoses in winter even here in PA are awful, nevermind hauling water. I can’t fathom ME. If the waterer isn’t in the cards start with the hydrant. Couple of hundred bucks installed to prevent a lot of wasted time and energy out in the cold. I went through one PA winter long ago with your current situation. Hairdryer therapy is not pretty.
Well, no doubt you need a frost free hydrant. That’s what they are for. I don’t have auto-waterers in my barn and have never missed having them, but the way my barn is set up my horses can share a heated tank and use their stalls as run-ins (dutch doors), so they are not locked inside.
If you would need to give each horse water in their stalls all winter, I’d consider installing auto-waterers at the same time. If you lived further south, I’d say you could deal with the coldest part of winter for a few weeks, but where you are located that could be months.
just a forewarning if you are dependent upon using electric heat to keep the water from freezing devise a backup plan for when the trees fall on the power lines knocking the power out for a few weeks … we ended up hauling water from a lake after having to chop through the ice… did I say we moved to Texas afterwards?
Good point! Waterers are on their own well and BO added a generator hookup for just such an occasion. They may not have water in the house, but at least the horses will be okay.
I’ve been to Texas, and I’ll admit it’s warmer, but I’ll still take the seasons and the snow we enjoy here in Maine!
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One thing to consider, if you do a frost-free hydrant, is to have it piped from the house. We installed ours when we were building our barn, it hooked into a cold-water pipe in the basement. My dad had the brilliant idea to also have it attached to a hot-water pipe. Both temperatures have on-off valves on them, and in the winter, I switch the hydrant to hot water only. I usually get about 5 gallons of cold water, and then the rest is hot (not super hot, because it does go a ways). But this is super helpful in the cold weather, because I end up filling ALL of the insulated water buckets with hot water at night, and nothing freezes. Granted, I don’t get anywhere near as cold as you do in Maine, but it’s very helpful.
@Nestor I just told Mr HH that someone on COTH had their field hydrant hooked to hot water and he about stroked out. :lol: As much as I’d love to fill winter buckets with warm water, do you really fill your water troughs from the hot water heater? Holy cow, the energy usage… I’m going to buy stock in your utility.
I’m just teasing, but seriously, a plug in bucket heater would get those buckets hot enough for tea in a few minutes…
I only have to fill 6 water buckets, max, so it’s nothing! My horses have run-out stalls, so I only have water buckets inside. But I’ve been at many big barns that fill their buckets with hot water in the winter, so it can’t be THAT expensive!
Putting in an underground water line to your barn this late in the year may well be problematical. When you fill the ditch in, the packing of the dirt is not as insulative as it was before digging the trench, and it will likely freeze. The dirt fill has to settle. It will take a year to settle fully. ALSO, if you have a path that crosses this trench, the compaction in this spot can “drive the frost down” to the pipe, and make it freeze. So be prepared to be bucketing water this winter, if you do this installation now.
I like to have BOTH a hydrant AND a heated auto waterer (of whatever type you prefer). Because both or either may still freeze, if it gets cold enough. It is easy enough to install both if you are going to put the trench in. The hydrants are cheap. The advantage of the heated auto waterer is that the water is constantly moving, as the horse drinks. We have had LESS freezing issues with the heated auto waterers than we have had with the hydrants. Our pipes are 6 feet down. Our winter temperatures get close to -40C at times.
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