What do you do to keep your pressure tank/well head from freezing?

[PILOON]

Have set up probably 2 dozen pumping situations such as yours in much colder climate.
Heated tape is good for the pipes but not pump or tank.
With a pump 'house' I use samall heaters of different sorts but find that the 1000 watt ceramic cubes are very effective.
Often I bypass any built in thermostat and install a standard household wall unit, while meant for 220 they work for 110 as after all they are but a switch.
Also many baseboard heaters can be had in 110 volts and coupled to a wall thermostat you have the most cost effective and simplest system going.
Naturally insulation is one of your better friends.

Placing 4-6" straw cover is very effective to prevent pipe freezing also.

 

[Egon]

[And my point is that your point is wrong. For you to say that my using CFLs is pointless is simply daft. This has worked for years with the same and much colder temperatures. CFLs DO generate heat just not as much as incandescent bulbs. /QUOTE]

As soon as the wattage consumed by CFL's equals that of the incandescent bulbs all should be equal, should it not.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

It seemed strange to me when visiting folks in NC that they have little well houses outside with the pressure tank in them. Up north most folks put the pressure tank in the house, and use a pitless adapter below frost line at the well, so it isn't an issue. With that said, my dad in ohio has an above ground pump on a dug well that supplies water to his house. He puts regular batt insulation over it, and on really cold nights, like below 0, he turns on a heat lamp, which is at least 150 or 200W. I remember as kids having to run out to the well house at night to turn on the heat lamp.

 

[RadarTech]

I have our tank in the basement beside the hot water heater.
The well head is just one of those fake rocks...

It has lots of insulation tape on the pipes. and then the outdoor insulation wrapped around the well with the rock on top.. and then dirt piled up to the plastic rock..
it is about a foot of dirt high and wide around the rock..

NOW-- last year my well head froze and boy what a mess...
the well head is ~40 feet lower than the basement..
It even broken the ball valve!

I had planned to build a good pump house this summer but never did...
maybe a good spring project!


anyway... that's my story!

J

 

[BobRip]

Respectfully Dan I have to side with Moss Road about the incandescent bulbs putting out more heat than compact fluorescent.

I have an outside well house also and have had freezing problems for 24 years up until this year I built a nice insulated walk in house over it.

I wouldn't waste my money on them (cfl) as a heat source a 50w plain old bulb will put out about twice as much heat as a 100w rated cfl. ymmv as always

A 13 watt CFL will put out 13 watts of heat, just like a 13 watt light bulb will. I know they rate these as comparable light output. Use the actual wattage to compare. You just needs more of them in your present situation. You need to monitor the enclosure temperature. Put a remote thermometer in it and monitor it. Maybe you need 50 watts of heat, maybe you need a thousand. At this point you don't know. Certainly sealing and insulation will help.
To get more life out of an incandescent light bulb, put two in series. The life will go up many many many times. Two strings of these will give you redundancy.

 

[milkman636]

Switch from cfls to rough service incandescents. They will last quite a while in a drop light, and they will give off more heat. Wire the outlet plug to a line-voltage snap acting thermostat that can be set to only power the lights when the temperature falls below 35-40 degrees in the well house. The line voltage thermostats will be able to break the 120v circuit any time the temperature rises above the setpoint. It will be fully automated and only use power when it is needed.

 

[tommu56]

my friend has one with 3 lights we wired one on all the time 2 on a photo cell one is inside the dog house one outside when the first light burns out the photo cell kicks in the second 2 the one is outside so you can see it and replace the first.

another trick is get 200w 220v incandescent lamps the filaments are heavier and run them on 120v you ger 100 watts out of them.

tom

 

[MossRoad]

And my point is that your point is wrong. For you to say that my using CFLs is pointless is simply daft. This has worked for years with the same and much colder temperatures. CFLs DO generate heat just not as much as incandescent bulbs.

Later,
Dan

If it works so well, why did it fail you this time?

 

[Boeing]

I read, with interest, your posts on keeping wellheads and tanks above freezing. Years ago I used the lightbulb method and it works great. I wanted to recall something though for you guys to chew over. Once our rural area lost elect service for 4 days. We were ok with wood heat but....no water pump, so no dripping lines and no light bulbs to heat ANYTHING. Yup, they froze and burst.
What do people with no constant electricity do? Campers, RV's, temp occupancy using generators...etc. All I can think of is DRAIN everything each time you leave. Any other ideas?

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, but, he's not the one without water.

Rimshot! :laughing:

Look, I don't mean to tick anyone off, and I apologize if it came across that way. Living in northern Indiana, we see temperature extremes from 100+ to -22 degrees. I have been experimenting with CFL bulbs for a few years for energy savings. They do not give off much heat. If you have to stack multiple bulbs together to get enough heat, and leave them on all the time, well, that ends up wasting more energy in the long run VS a couple incandescent bulbs on a thermostat that only come on when needed.