Question about fittings and freezing

[slash007]

I put t's and check valves in my attic on top of each boom in order to prevent a constant weep from my guns. Problem is that when a bay freezes up, the t always busts. First I had galvanized T's and one busted, but then I changed them all out to brass t's so that there is no corrosion, but those all busted as well. Would changing them to stainless be the solution? If that prevents the T from busting, will that cause some other fitting to bust as well? So far every time a bay has frozen, the t busted so I am trying to make future freeze ups easier. View attachment 555

 

[mjwalsh]

I put t's and check valves in my attic on top of each boom in order to prevent a constant weep from my guns. Problem is that when a bay freezes up, the t always busts. First I had galvanized T's and one busted, but then I changed them all out to brass t's so that there is no corrosion, but those all busted as well. Would changing them to stainless be the solution? If that prevents the T from busting, will that cause some other fitting to bust as well? So far every time a bay has frozen, the t busted so I am trying to make future freeze ups easier. View attachment 555

Slash007,

There is welded stainless & higher pressure stainless tees ... so the hi press stainless fitting is something to consider on the tee. It is possible that a thinner lower rated cheap brass fitting close by (super easy to change) maybe helpful as sort of a break open relief outlet when the expanding of the water occurs. Sometimes, we do a partial quickie blowout of the lines where we know our nozzle might freeze but the blow out reduces the water ... even in the low dipping spots in the supply line. Those areas of dead space definitely has helped us from not having blown out cracked from freezing fittings. At one time we had all soft copper tubing going out to our bays ... it did not often break but it became larger in diameter which meant occasionally a compression ferrule would no longer fit over the tubing. We use 3/8 inch 3,000 psi hose nowadays for the majority of our supply lines ... freezing does not bother it.

I know in the laundromat we use stand pipes for excess suds to dissipate ... so maybe an air chamber stand pipe slightly higher than the rest of tee. Mechanical contractors use stand pipes as an air chamber. Maybe a boiler air bleeder valve would allow air to go out when the pressure builds up at that above flow height.

mike walsh www.kingkoin.com

 

[2Biz]

Stainless would be stronger than brass but its no gaurantee it won't crack. You really need to figure out why your freezing up, even up in the trough? Do you have heat in your trough? If not, you coiuld run a loop from your floor heat boiler or install heat tape in the trough. I have both....Aside from my truck bay freezing, which I believe was froze before the weep kicked on because of such a swift temperature drop, I had three other bays weeping cold water that survived -12° temps at night and -2° daytime temps for more than 2 days....(My weep sensor is currently inside a bay....it is getting corrected)... The 75' of Raychem Winter Gaurd Heat tape I have only uses 450w of electric. Thats not much for piece of mind....It gets to 120° and is self regulated. It never gets above 120°.

Even when my truck bay froze this time and it was a hard freeze, none of the brass fittings cracked in the trough. I have heat tape that goes all the way out to the truck bay, out the trough, and follows the HP hose down to the top side of the rotary union. Its all wrapped with foam insulation...The boom and union all thawed out on its own Wednesday even with temps not hitting 30°. If I didn't have the heat tape or loop from the floor heat out to the truck bay, the freeze-up would have been much much worse.

 

[MEP001]

Stainless will break from freezing just as easily as brass. No plumbing is strong enough to keep water from expanding when it freezes.

 

[slash007]

Stainless will break from freezing just as easily as brass. No plumbing is strong enough to keep water from expanding when it freezes.

In that case I will just stick with brass. I don't have any heat tape or any type of heat in the trough. Previously I had only one freeze up at this wash and it was on my first bay, so on that one I removed the gun and wand and let it just weep through the hose and of course that was the only bay that survived. I wonder if I had taken the guns off the other bays if they would have survived too, or if the first bay survived because it had more flow after the other froze up.

 

[2Biz]

or if the first bay survived because it had more flow after the other froze up.

I would think that would have been the case. Once the other bays froze, all the pressure and water was diverted to bay one. Plus when you left bay one "Uncapped" per say, it probably changed the flow and pressure to your remaining bays which allowed them to freeze up faster. How many ounces a minute are you weeping. I'm right at 16-18 ozs per minute per bay.

Also, where is your weepmiser sensor? Mine is in a bay next to the ER. I have another sensor coming and it will go on the North side of the building to control weep. I'm hoping this will help with my truck bay. Even though its only froze a few times in 3 years. It was always from a piece of dirt in the nozzle. This time dirt wasn't the cause.

You might also want to experiment with P1 on your weepmiser. You might go from 10% to 20% so you have more "On" time when the weepmizer kicks on. It might be worth a try.

 

[Ric]

It takes a pretty hard freeze to bust a fitting like that. You need to correct the freezing problem rather than find stronger fittings. We had no freeze ups in the wands and got down to -12. We weep hot water when its below 0. That keeps everything in the trough toasty warm also.

 

[Robert2181]

I agree with Ric & Mep001. The only way to stop the fittings from splitting is to stop the freezing. Either you need to have a constant weep with good pressure or have a blow down system. A heated trough is a must. A constant freeze and thaw will weaken fittings of any kind. And will eventually the ice will find the weakest point to expand.

 

[slash007]

Agreed that I need to stop the freezing. My next step has to be a heated trough. Should I just run a heat tape in there? I don't see how I could run a line from my floor heat, so I'm not sure of other options to heat it.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

The line is already there, the HP line. Just change some plumbing to your weep supply so that you can weep hot water when it gets very cold. That's all you need to do. I've been doing it for decades.

 

[slash007]

The line is already there, the HP line. Just change some plumbing to your weep supply so that you can weep hot water when it gets very cold. That's all you need to do. I've been doing it for decades.

I would do that, but I don't have hot water at the wash. There is a boiler but it has never worked. I was going to take it out and install a water tank, but maybe I'll just fix the boiler and only use it in the winter.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

How about going to Lowes or HD and just buy a small water heater that can be plugged into the wall. Something for a mobile home or RV should suffice for that. It should be cheap and pretty easy to rig up.

 

[slash007]

How about going to Lowes or HD and just buy a small water heater that can be plugged into the wall. Something for a mobile home or RV should suffice for that. It should be cheap and pretty easy to rig up.

I just went over to the wash with your idea in mind and came up with a good plan. I already have a small water heater that is only used for the bathroom over there. It is all the way on the other side of the large ER, but it shouldn't be too hard to run a pipe from it along the ceiling and tie into my weep. I have week for the foam brush and Tri-foam as well, but will only weep hot for the guns as the brush and tri-foam never freeze up weeping as is. Another thing I just realized is that the tri-foam and brush are using a lot of my the weep pressure, so that's probably another reason why I froze up.

 

[Ric]

with hot water weep you will be able to dial down the flow a bit also.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Agreed that I need to stop the freezing. My next step has to be a heated trough. Should I just run a heat tape in there? I don't see how I could run a line from my floor heat, so I'm not sure of other options to heat it.

Isathe trough insulated? I found the insulation had broken down in a place I took over. Put in ridgid foam on all 4 sides.

 

[slash007]

Isathe trough insulated? I found the insulation had broken down in a place I took over. Put in ridgid foam on all 4 sides.

It is not insulated, not a bad idea either.

 

[Stuart]

My trough, which has some insulation, is on the exposed flat roof to the elements with my ER at the end of 5 bays.
Along with the weep which is controlled with a weepmiser, I installed a centrifugal pump which circs hot water from my automatic hot tank through the trough with pex type tubing, 3/4".
My trough has many points of entry for outside frigid air to freeze the trough. Due to this we also installed a small squirrel cage fan to blow ER air through the trough. With this setup we rarely freeze up and came thru this last spell of -12 temps plus windchill with no problems.
Actually the times we do freeze up is when the temps get about +25. I think it's when everybody at this end of town flushes at the same time in the morning.

 

[2Biz]

Slash,

I have to agree with Stuart. I think you'd be better off circulating Hot Water in the trough rather than weeping it. I don't recall how many bays you have, but its possible the small hot water heater won't keep up with the flow. My 4 bay can weep 30-40 gallons an hour at 100%. Would your small heater keep up with this? I know it would if you were circulating it. You'll want to make sure you get a bronze or Stainless Steel circulator. Cast iron won't hold up to fresh water. I think I've already mentioned this, I weeped cold water during the -12° temps we had last week. 3 out of 4 bays did fine. I have a new weep sensor mounted on the north wall now which I'm hoping helps with the truck bay!

You also need to make sure you seal the trough with insulation any place air can get in. That way the circulating hot water can keep the trough nice and warm.

 

[Jeff_L]

Are they busting before you start the thaw process or during it? I learned the hard wash that when I began to unfreeze a bay i would start with the wand, work up the hose, to the boom, etc. I busted fittings that way because I believe the tip on the wand didn't provide enough of an opening for a rapid thaw and the ice would have no where to go.

t have since learned to remove the hose/wand from the boom and put it in the equipment room to thaw. I then start working the boom on up. Of course my freeze ups now are far and few between as I've tweaked settings in the bays over the years.

 

[MEP001]

Are they busting before you start the thaw process or during it? I learned the hard wash that when I began to unfreeze a bay i would start with the wand, work up the hose, to the boom, etc. I busted fittings that way because I believe the tip on the wand didn't provide enough of an opening for a rapid thaw and the ice would have no where to go.

I would assume the fittings are broken because they were frozen, and they're just not leaking until they're thawed. I can't imagine how you'd burst a fitting by thawing it.