Keeping water lines and water pressure tank from freezing

poirier · Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:14 pm

Hello everyone, I just recently purchased a mobile home and am very new to this so any help here would be greatly appreciated. I live in Maine so freezing pipes is obviously an issue.

Right now when I look underneath the home it looks like they have heat tape wrapped around the water pipe right to where it goes into the insulation and it is wrapped all the way back to where the water line comes up from the slab. The part from the insulation to the first valve is also wrapped in insulation. The previous owners also have some type of heating lamp hanging from one of the i beams.

I just feel very concerned about any type of fire starting because of the lamp/heat tape. I was talking with my Dad who has built a few homes himself and seemed to think the best idea would be to try and put the pressure tank inside the home so it would be less of a worry. His plan would be to run the water line coming in directly up to the insulation and then building an insulated box around the exposed line in hopes of eliminating the need for heat tape and a heat lamp.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Thanks
Jason

Greg · Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:44 pm

Hi & welcome. Freezing weather is always a challenge in a Mobile home and there are no 100% guaranteed answer, what works in one home may not work in another but I will give you some general ideas.

If possible move as much as possible it inside the home. I know this can be difficult due to available room. You will need to heat tape & insulate the main water line coming in to the home. If possible install new tape now and you should not have any worries for the next few years. Skirting needs to be 100% intact with NO holes, if you can insulate the skirting you will be even farther ahead.

Greg

poirier · Tue Sep 18, 2012 5:34 pm

Thanks for the information Greg, the plan is to insulate all the skirting but I don't know if I will have the money to do it this year. As far as the water pressure tank what would you suggest? Should I just wrap insulation around that and run a light bulb under there? And also what do you think of building a kind of box around the whole tank and using some rigid insulation?

Greg · Tue Sep 18, 2012 6:48 pm

If you have to leave it outside, I would enclose it in some type of insulated box. You could heat it with either heat tape or possibly drop a small heat duct down to it from the furnace.

Greg

hhb · Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:44 am

Hi, I'm in New Brunswick, same climate as you and am still setting up my place too. Anyway, it seems like a few people around here have their pressure tanks and stuff under the MH. They build a styrofoam box around it and put in a light bulb socket with a 100W bulb. In fact, that is what was on mine before I moved it.

Yes it seems like a dumb idea, but it's not unheard of. I asked one of the the well guys around here about it, that's how he sets them up. He said the reason is that pressure tanks rust out and fail, and that means a whole bunch of water inside your home, and water is the #1 enemy of mobiles. My argument is that they wouldn't rust out and fail as often if they were inside... but then again, it seems to be working for these people. Anyway, I had to get all new stuff for mine, so I built a wooden bracket above the water heater, put the pressure tank up there, ran the well pipe straight up to there and put all the gear inside the water heater closet including pressure switch and what not. The water heater itself sits in a pan with a drain, and I stuck a small pipe on the drain that goes back through the floor to underneath, so in the event of a water leak that should hopefully catch most of it and carry it away.

One thing I noticed is I get condensation on the brass tank T and some of the pipes because the well water is so cold, not so much now but when the weather is hotter and humid. I thought I had a leak at one point but it turned out to be condensation. So, if you do move your gear inside, make sure you have some way of mitigating leaks and condensation. I plan to insulate the pipes and the tank T inside to help with this as well.

poirier · Wed Sep 19, 2012 9:28 am

hhb thanks a bunch for the information! very helpful I didn't even think about the leaking and condensation part of it so will have to factor that in to my decision of whether or not to move it inside.

Also if I decide to move it inside I would basically just have the water line come in from the slab and go straight up and run it up above the insulation. Now do you think I can get away with building a box around that and insulating it really well to avoid even using heat tape under the mobile home?

hhb · Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:10 am

Others around here have more experience than I do, but here my thought: it freezes below ground level, so it's not just the pipe above the ground you have to worry about. There's a reason well pipes go underground below frost level into a house with a basement, so I would assume they could freeze just below ground level too unless insulated. My heat tape goes around the pipe well into the ground. I'm still going to add more insulation to the pipe above ground, but don't be afraid of using heat tape. Seems to me to be the simplest solution. Also, I don't know about you, but my pipe doesn't come straight up into the home, it does a big curve because it's offset by a few feet.

Here's a pic of my pressure tank setup, don't mind the tool left on the water heater:

poirier · Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:51 am

Well it does make sense that it may freeze underground in the pipe coming up but the current set up doesn't have any heat tape going down into there so it would be my guess that they didn't have any problems with that part freezing maybe?

Yeah currently the water line comes in basically does an L around the tank and then probably about 3 feet away it heads up into the insulation. But I figured if we are moving the tank into the house instead of running the water line all the way from where it comes into the slab to where it goes into the insulation we would send it straight up from where it comes in the slab and then have it protected by the insulation under the floor that way there would only be one small section of exposed pipe for us to build a box around and insulate

hhb · Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:02 pm

poirier wrote:Well it does make sense that it may freeze underground in the pipe coming up but the current set up doesn't have any heat tape going down into there so it would be my guess that they didn't have any problems with that part freezing maybe?

Yeah currently the water line comes in basically does an L around the tank and then probably about 3 feet away it heads up into the insulation. But I figured if we are moving the tank into the house instead of running the water line all the way from where it comes into the slab to where it goes into the insulation we would send it straight up from where it comes in the slab and then have it protected by the insulation under the floor that way there would only be one small section of exposed pipe for us to build a box around and insulate

Might work. I'd make sure there was some path into the heated space to allow some heat down there. Another thing to do is to run your dryer duct through the insulated space you build (unless you already have a good setup that isn't close). That way it heats up whenever you use the dryer, which at my house is at least once a day. I'm running my dryer duct next to the pipe underneath for that reason; if it ever does freeze up for some reason, the dryer may provide enough heat to solve the problem. Note that it still vents outside though, I know some people just run into underneath their home for extra heat, I don't think that's a good idea because of moisture and mold.

poirier · Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:11 pm

That's a pretty good idea but yeah the dryer vent is quite a ways away from where the water line comes up from the slab, basically my dryer is right next to an exterior wall and it vents out right next to it.

I actually just talked to my Dad and he is going to spot me the money to get all the skirting insulated this year, so I'm wondering if I insulate all the skirting and build an insulated box around the water line coming in if that would be enough to keep it from freezing. I don't really know maybe I still need to use heat tape anyway

hhb · Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:12 pm

The heat tape is good insurance, anyway. It doesn't come on unless the thermostat tells it to, so it may never come on... but in case it was needed, better to have it there I'd say, even if you think the insulation is good enough.

poirier · Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:13 pm

Probably a pretty good idea, thanks again for all your help! I will try to post back here again once I decide what I'm going to do!

Greg · Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:18 pm

A few ideas on things said. You can place a remote sensor thermometer under your home to keep an eye on any possible freeze ups.

Our heat tape is on a switch as well as the manufacturer's thermostat, I do not trust it in warm weather and flip the switch off to make sure it's off during the summer.

Greg

poirier · Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:24 pm

Well it took most of the day but I got my water pressure tank moved inside! One less thing I have to worry about freezing, we got it all hooked back up and everything worked fine without any leaks so I was pretty happy.

poirier · Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:21 pm

So I am now ready for winter!

My dad helped me install a GFI switch in my panel box that now controls the heat tape so I don't have to crawl under there to turn it on and off. We also finished insulating all the way around the skirting. What a pain that was but I think it should be worth it. I bought a remote temperature sensor and so far we have gotten down to 32 degrees here in Maine and the temperature underneath he mobile home has stayed right around 53 degrees!