With the low lake level, some wave action we’ve had after the last snowfalls
that took the insulating snow away and recent low temps, several folks who
draw water from the lake have found their pipes frozen in that area between
the lake edge and where the ground is snow covered. I know myself of four that have
had this problem- one got it open and three have not. We also have
friends that have a similar system but have kept it open leaving just
enough of a trickle of water running somewhere in the house to make the pump cycle every 10 or 15 minutes. One of the homes with pipes frozen tried to remedy the
problem by building a fire on the beach over where the pipes are. This has
worked for them in the past but did not this time.
If you have a lake system and yours is not frozen up one good thing to do
might be to heap some snow onto that exposed area of beach over your pipes.
Snow is a good insulator.
I don’t have any cures or remedies other than the above- just want to
give those with similar systems a head-up that you might have to have
contingency plans for water when you come up.
George
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Another Minnesota native advises that they would put dwon straw in the fall over where pipes were buried but that probably wouldn’t work near the waters edge when there is any wave action at all or the straw just gets wet. One thing I’ve done in the past that seemed to be effective was putting ground-rakings (pine needles, twigs, etc) over the pipe before I buried it. It helps insulate but also when I dug it up later sometimes I could actually feel heat the decomposing material was generating as it decomposed- like the heat that creates spontaneous combustion in stacked hay bales. Again, that probably would not be effective where the water table is higher than the buried pipe but in other drier areas it is.
Thanks for letting the group know about the Cascade Quest dog races last weekend. Lots of fun and the pancake breakfast was great also!
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