Drywall contractor wants to bankrupt me!

[Beltzington]

First full month electric bill after the heaters were turned on: $1,566.

Wishing you had gone with natural gas

Georgia Electric offers off peak rate pricing that is less than standard rates, if you are running electric heaters all night it would be worth a call to ask your provider.

 

[plowhog]

No natural gas to the property. I have three propane furnaces for the residence but the are "not to be used for construction." But ..... after the drywall is complete, I'm going to ask the GC to get them set and fired up. Supposedly I void the warranty if I use them during construction ... but it seems advantageous to do so.

 

[EddieWalker]

That's a lot of square footage to heat. Here, we pay a fortune to keep a house cool and only deal with cold for two months, but its not every day, or even all week. Today is supposed to hit 70. I have clients with houses that size and they where wanting me to do all sorts of crazy things to reduce their energy bill. A grand a month to cool their houses isn't unheard of. The most effective way that I know of was to max out their attic insulation and seal all the air leaks on their walls. R 60 in the attic with nothing being stored above living areas. Then caulk around every opening in the walls. It's amazing how many windows leak around the framing of the windows!!!! I've had some houses cut their energy bills in half, but a third is probably the most common result.

I'm curious about the plumbing in your shop that you are heating the building to keep from freezing. Is there a way to isolate just the plumbing and maintain it at 40 degrees and not heat the entire building?

 

[plowhog]

That's an interesting angle to just keep the plumbing warm-- not the entire building. This is a newly constructed steel building and I went around it finding LOTS of air leaks. The roof vents were not properly aligned with the control-- so all the way shut (supposedly) still left all three of them partially open. I fixed that. And the concrete slab has sloped cutouts where the rollup doors come down. The door bottoms seal OK but the each side had a gaping airway. 5 doors = 10 gaping airways. So I sealed all of that. And the door channel has many holes in it-- I can feel air coming through-- so just temporary I am taping over all of that. I'm sure there is plenty more to find as time permits. I do regret doing 4:12 roof pitch-- it created a lot of additional sq ft volume and, of course, the heat just rises up into oblivion.

The only trick about not keeping the structure inside above freezing is I keep my motor home in there. Frozen lines in that RV would probably be a nightmare to chase down and repair?

The other issue is the MOR electric heaters only go down to 40F on their thermostat. If I could work around that somehow with an alternate control system I could probably get away with setting them to trigger at 35F. Then they would turn on later, and turn off sooner.

I have a framed in office/shower/bath with plumbing. But that internal structure seems to stay plenty warm, plus there are wall electric heater I could set to low to prevent any plumbing freeze issues. Good idea Eddie-- I will see what I can do!

 

[EddieWalker]

I've never seen it, but I've heard of heated tape that you wrap around pipes and plug into a wall outlet. Or something like that to keep just the pipes warm. Costs about the same as a light bulb running 24/7.

 

[bigtiller]

I've never seen it, but I've heard of heated tape that you wrap around pipes and plug into a wall outlet. Or something like that to keep just the pipes warm. Costs about the same as a light bulb running 24/7.

That put a smile on my face with a bit of envy for your warm climate.

Up north, heat tape and snow shovels go hand in hand.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've never seen it, but I've heard of heated tape that you wrap around pipes and plug into a wall outlet. Or something like that to keep just the pipes warm. Costs about the same as a light bulb running 24/7.

I've used heat tape effectively and they come in all size lengths with a cube thermostat.

The one I use said not to wrap it but it is in a metal shop so there is nothing to burn and the tape is 30" wrapped around a hose bib copper supply line and I do have it wrapped with fiberglass/foil water heater pipe wrap...

On a side note...

ALL of the new cabins with copper water pipe are very susceptible to freeze... unless the water is evacuated with compressed air or the system is set to drain perfectly... or kept at 40 minimum.

The interesting thing is those with old half inch galvanized have few to no problem just turning off the water and leaving the hydrants open... makes me think galvanized is far more tolerant of freeze than copper....

 

[dnw64]

The interesting thing is those with old half inch galvanized have few to no problem just turning off the water and leaving the hydrants open... makes me think galvanized is far more tolerant of freeze than copper....

I'm sure galvanized cast iron is stronger than copper, but you bring up an interesting point - leaving the hydrants open.

It is my understanding that freezing pipes do not burst pipes at the location of the freeze. Rather, the freezing water takes up more space, causing higher water pressure between the ice and whatever is holding that water back (i.e. closed valve); once the water pressure gets high enough it bursts the pipe at the weakest point. So by keeping the hydrant/faucet/valves open, unless you have two freezing locations with no relief in between, you "should" be ok. No warranty from me though!

 

[ultrarunner]

I added a captive air tank with bladder in Washington but have not followed up to see if it helped...

The idea is to have room for expansion...

 

[civilian]

The interesting thing is those with old half inch galvanized have few to no problem just turning off the water and leaving the hydrants open... makes me think galvanized is far more tolerant of freeze than copper....

Pex piping is supposed to withstand freezing water. Haven't tried it, don't know if I want to. Jon