Its that time of year again for me at least. Spring when i go to test my pipes after winter and realize i have more that have cracked. This is on my solar build (which full details are linked in my sig). Its a real nightmare for my 6'6 frame to get under here in the mud and muck and repair things, circular saw and all.
Last fall I took a vac and disconnected the pipes and sucked them out pulling the water.. i think i also did a push on air going the other way, or maybe i forgot on the one side, where i have a check valve/psi it only goes one way.. just beyond this heading towards the back end under my deck it slopes down eventually. I'm guessing water in that spot laid there and froze
The red area is what cracked (water flows towards this area through the check valve, 1 direction). Also.. circled pvc union is leaking, maybe because its not perfectly square or the valve just failed, as in the fall i disconnected the 3 unions you see, tilted it up and made sure water was out of that tee essentially, then ran the vac on the open ports. All in all i guess i did better this year, last year the hayward valve cracked, but since i had 3 unions i was able to avoid that this year.
On the other end i do have two openings on the garage pipes where i can do a suction on this same pipe (but its coming back from 20 feet or so). Disregard the crossover text below:
I was thinking of putting at least one union where the pipe cracked in red, however, given that the other union suddenly failed, its less appealing thinking it might need changed again.
The rest of the pipe going to my garage is buried 2 feet deep, never an issue, only here under the deck has there been an issue.
So rather than a union I was thinking of coming up with another idea, maybe some material i could just cover the pipe with (bringing in 2 feet of dirt under here just wont work though). I think someone mentioned putting antifreeze in the pipes in the fall, but that sounds too scary even if it does break down or dilute in the chlorine.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance
Last fall I took a vac and disconnected the pipes and sucked them out pulling the water.. i think i also did a push on air going the other way, or maybe i forgot on the one side, where i have a check valve/psi it only goes one way.. just beyond this heading towards the back end under my deck it slopes down eventually. I'm guessing water in that spot laid there and froze
The red area is what cracked (water flows towards this area through the check valve, 1 direction). Also.. circled pvc union is leaking, maybe because its not perfectly square or the valve just failed, as in the fall i disconnected the 3 unions you see, tilted it up and made sure water was out of that tee essentially, then ran the vac on the open ports. All in all i guess i did better this year, last year the hayward valve cracked, but since i had 3 unions i was able to avoid that this year.
On the other end i do have two openings on the garage pipes where i can do a suction on this same pipe (but its coming back from 20 feet or so). Disregard the crossover text below:
I was thinking of putting at least one union where the pipe cracked in red, however, given that the other union suddenly failed, its less appealing thinking it might need changed again.
The rest of the pipe going to my garage is buried 2 feet deep, never an issue, only here under the deck has there been an issue.
So rather than a union I was thinking of coming up with another idea, maybe some material i could just cover the pipe with (bringing in 2 feet of dirt under here just wont work though). I think someone mentioned putting antifreeze in the pipes in the fall, but that sounds too scary even if it does break down or dilute in the chlorine.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance
