Anti Freeze protocol question

[whillyjo]

I live in central California in a location that can dip below 32F on occasion. The previous homeowner downplayed this and just indicated that on the nights that are forecasted to dip below freezing, he would run the pool pump for a few hours during the coldest part of the night. Well this is easy enough to accomplish on the main pump, put the spa pump is not on a programable timer. The separate spa pump is in a closed circuit that goes through a gas heater....which is the component that I am worried about.

There is a drain valve on the heater manifold to drain the water out of the heat exchanger, but based on the layout of the pool/spa (spa spills over into the pool) the drain valve is actually lower than the water level in the spa....so the spa water drains out of the heater valve when the drain valve is opened.

There is not an easy way to disconnect the heater from the circuit and close off the pipes, just too many glued joints and splices.

Any ideas or conventional wisdom to solve the dilemma and prevent water from freezing in the heater?

Thanks.

 

[257WbyMag]

What problems, if any, did the previous owner have with this and what did he do about it? If he has managed to avoid problems with freezing water in the heater since 1997, you will probably be ok continuing on what he has done. Especially since your temperatures don't get much below 32 degrees and not for very long.

 

[whillyjo]

I don't know any specifics, just what was in my original post. Last year I did not take any precautions and after the winter months I noticed that the header on one side of the heater was leaking ( a bulging crack the pool guy indicated was due to freezing water). I fixed it with JB Weld and is working great. the other side had the same sort of bulging crack, so I feel it is close to breaking through as well, so i need to do something. Since it is not on a timer, I feel like my options are:
1. fire up the heater for a few minutes prior to going to bed just to keep the heat exchanger from dropping below freezing,
2. on the suspect nights, run the spa pump all night to prevent freezing.

I was hoping that others had tackled this problem previously....or maybe most in this situation have properly plumbed heaters so that they can isolate the heaters and drain them.

Any ideas?

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Buy a timer.

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