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Winterizing the cottage

Case Study 2, continued: how do we protect the pipes outside?

Click here for Case Study 2-part 1.

By Charles Long

Outside the cottage, the water intake and septic lines may need extra protection, depending on the depth at which they’re buried. As newbie cottagers, the Farringtons haven’t explored the underground plumbing yet, so a cautious approach is warranted. Intake lines can be heated with a variety of commercial solutions. Jet pumps, which leave water in the line, and submersible pumps, which drain between uses, require different products, but those aren’t hard to find. 

The original technology was resistance heating, a wrap or insert that heated the whole length of the intake, which worked only as long as the entire pipe was filled with water to distribute the heat. Submersibles may require a self-regulating system that can vary the heat output to prevent freezing at one end and overheating at the other. In either case, insulating the line between water source and cottage will reduce hydro use and the risk of freezing. 

The simplest insulation is a few feet of dirt, with minimum burial depth dependant on soil type, sun, snow cover, and temperature. 

You can ask neighbours or contractors about reliable local practice, but dirt of sufficient depth can be hard to find in much of cottage country. Many cottagers compensate by casing the line in foam, or even by covering the buried line’s path with a thick layer of straw in the fall. (Leaves work too, but compact and lose some insulation value when wet.)

The septic system is usually more forgiving; bacteria slow their pace in the cold but, with intermittent human use, they don’t have much work to do in the winter anyway. The system will heat up again in the spring and get back to business as usual. The pipe to the tank may be more vulnerable, especially if it’s a shallow pipe that dips and humps over the terrain, leaving pockets of liquid waste in the dips. Without the dips, the pipe would drain into the tank. With them, pooled liquid can freeze and break the pipe, although this would happen whether or not the Farringtons used the plumbing in the winter. Luckily, the Farringtons’ waste line is short, buried, and runs downhill for gravity drainage. If they haven’t noticed any seepage – indicating a break in the line or a tank overdue for pumping – they may not need the additional winter protection of an insulating layer. (Robert Pratten – see Case Study 1 – on the other hand, has an unprotected pumped line – 150 metres running uphill over rocks to his septic tank. That’s the worst-case scenario for freezing, and why he’s looking at a composting toilet for winter use.)

 

 

 

Winter 2007 coverAdapted from an article originally published in the Winter 2007 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

Copyright © 2007 by Cottage Life. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.