Laundry Pipes Freezing

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clix

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My laundry room backs up to my garage, which is not heated. For the past 2 years we've lived here, the pipes have frozen but not burst. I tore out the drywall in the garage (image attached) away this winter because the pipes were frozen for over a week and we needed to do laundry and I used a hairdryer to warm the pipes up until water was flowing again. While the one week without laundry was inconvenient, the main thing I want to do is to avoid a burst pipe. I've installed shutoffs in the basement so that if I know we're in for really cold weather I can shut them off, but that requires me to be thinking about temps and frozen pipes...

I was thinking when I pulled the drywall back I could figure out a way to run pex from a location in my basement to this location to lessen the risk of burst pipes, but I don't think this is going to be possible without a lot of work.

Does anyone have any suggestions for my situation? Burying an electrical / heat tape kind of device in the wall doesn't seem right. The only other thing I can think of is scabbing on an additional 2x4 wall in the garage to add an extra layer of insulation and possibly opening channels in the wall inside of the laundry room to let some of the warmer air in that room into the stud bays to help keep the pipes above freezing (but there isn't much air circulation behind the cabinets/appliances, so don't think that will help much).
 

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Reach4

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The heated house is on the other side, right? In that case, put much better insulation on this side, and I think the problem will go away. EPS and XPS will give a lot better insulation than fiberglass. Insulate above and below where the foam ends vertically, also.
 

hj

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turning off the valves in the basement before it freezes could almost guarantee a broken pipe, because that traps the expansion when it does freeze, which will create a great pressure in the piping.
 

Kreemoweet

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Remove the fiberglass. Glue some foam insulation panels to the garage side of your wet wall. Put a small heater in the
laundry room during winter, set on "low".
 

clix

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turning off the valves in the basement before it freezes could almost guarantee a broken pipe, because that traps the expansion when it does freeze, which will create a great pressure in the piping.

The shutoffs have a bleeder valve that I would use to drain the lines.
 

clix

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Remove the fiberglass. Glue some foam insulation panels to the garage side of your wet wall. Put a small heater in the
laundry room during winter, set on "low".

Do you mean on the outside of the drywall after it's replaced?
 

Themp

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I would go with ISO panels and cut them to fit in that 2 x 6 spaces.

https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2009/05/01/which-rigid-insulation-should-i-choose

Then fill all the gaps with expanding foam.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Dow-GREAT-STUFF-Gaps-and-Cracks-12-oz-Spray-Foam-Insulation/3012216

Make sure you seal at the top of the open space so cold air in the wall above the pipes can not settle down to the pipes. Your picture shows some long vertical capped copper pipes on the right side that are supposed to be hammer arrestors. Plumbers will tell you that over time these pipes that are supposed to hold air, the air gets absorbed into the water and then the pipes just are pipes with water in them. But, I bet they might have held some air and maybe that is where the expansion pressure was absorbed during the freeze. Just guessing on this.

Since you have the wall open, I would not sheet rock it out. Maybe some plywood that you can remove and see how it goes over the coming winter. Or go with another panel of ISO or XPS and paint it white.
 

clix

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So, I filled in the stud bays with cut ISO panels and spray foamed around the edges to seal things up as good as possible. As I was doing some work on my basement I noticed a draft coming from the rim joist and when I tore out the paneling I found a large hole for the plumbing that runs under the laundry room floor that has a very strong, cold air draft and an open void under the laundry room's concrete floor. I can't figure out where the draft is coming from, but I think even with the insulation I put in the wall, the pipes are being exposed air from the outside somewhere.

I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions on what to do here? I have thought about running waterlines up into the first floor and over the laundry room, but don't think that will work. Have also thought about running pex (possibly inside some PVC that I feed through the void under the laundry room) and then have a mudjacking or insulation company come and fill the void to get rid of the cold air exposure and provide support for the laundry room floor.

Any suggestions?
 

Themp

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I think a picture or two at this point is going to be needed. You seem to have moved now to the basement and also state that the laundry room's floor is concrete. Meaning that the laundry room is a slab of some sort and it sits beside a basement with joists for the ceiling. A picture of this open void would be helpful. I assume last year's frozen pipe(s) were in the wall and not in this void or basement area. You used the hairdryer on the outside wall pipes in the garage? Also, I assume you have sealed the hot and cold water lines that run down into the slab in the one picture you have posted. So, at this point how is cold air from the basement going along the void going to migrate to the wall in question? Or are you worried now about pipes freezing in the void?
 

clix

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I've attached a drawing, it's a cutaway to show the void. A picture will be hard to take given the tight space, I'm seeing most of this using an inspection camera. The plumbing runs the length of the laundry room slab, ~9 feet.

I'm not sure about last year's frozen pipes. I assumed that they froze in the wall, but with a hairdryer it took me at least 30 minutes on a day that was above freezing to get the water lines moving. I was only warming the area in the wall with the hair dryer but the frozen portion could have been under the laundry room slab (I wasn't aware of the void under the laundry room slab at the time). The wall cavities and the pipes that you saw in the prior picture are as insulated as they can be now with the ISO panels you recommended.

I have cold air from somewhere coming from the void, through the hole in the rim joist, into my basement (at a surprisingly fast rate, even when there is no noticeable breeze outside, cob webs are flapping around like a flag would on a day with a decent breeze). I'm concerned the cold air that is coming from that void will also be cold enough to cause the pipes to freeze in the winter. I have no clue where the air is coming from, but if I can fill the void with hydraulic cement or polyfill, I think that would keep things from freezing and would provide structural support. I'm just not sure what I should do for the water lines before I fill that void.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and any suggestions you have.

Untitled.png
 

AZEric

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Easiest and cheapest way is install heat tape keep it plugged in the thermostat will kick on if it is cold problem solved for about $30
 

clix

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Easiest and cheapest way is install heat tape keep it plugged in the thermostat will kick on if it is cold problem solved for about $30

Thanks for the suggestion but unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, I don't think that will work for me. I don't have access sufficient to wrap heat tape around the 9' section of the pipe that runs through the void under the laundry room slab. I could wrap heat tape around the pipe in the basement before the 9' run under the laundry room slab, is that what you were suggesting?
 

Themp

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Ok, so you have a slab over crushed stone, that has a channel for the water supply lines and sewer. Why do you think this is not structurally sound? Not really sure what polyfill is at this point(Google was not clear what it was), but if it is some kind of insulation, that would not provide any structural support. Filling the cavity with cement does not seem like a good option in that some day you might want to use this channel for something. What you have done by opening the wall to the void is to allow air now to escape from the crushed stone. In my area, basements are usually fitted with a radon extractor that is a 4 inch hole into the cement floor with a exhaust fan that can pull the air from the crushed stone to the outside. This air has to come from somewhere, which is usually around the perimeter of the house. The fan puts a negative pressure on the stone which draws in the radon and air and keeps it from coming into the basement. Your basement is doing the same thing on the void. So, you want to block this opening and make the air inside the void become a stagnant air mass, which should not get cold enough to freeze those pipes. The ground holds a large amount of energy and getting that area below freezing seems unlikely. Another option is to get one of these and put it in the void, close off the void and see what the temperature goes down to.

https://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Preci...&pf_rd_p=7f9050f3-623a-52ea-9cb0-c43cecf77750
 

clix

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Thanks for the response again and helping me work through this.

The living areas of the house are on a basement. For the laundry/garage portions it is slab over crushed stone, however there is about 1' between the bottom of the slab and the top of the gravel. Based on what I can see from the inspection camera, the void is at least 3'x3'x12" (it's not just a chase for the plumbing). From what I've read, the builder here probably excavated the ground under my laundry room and garage floor, poured the foundation for the other portions of the house, then back filled, covered with crushed stone and poured the slabs for the garage and laundry room. It seems that the soil was not compacted well and settled overtime.

Sorry, the product I was thinking about is called PolyLevel, polyurethane/foam jacking instead of using concrete/mortar type material. The rim joist was open already, I just removed some ceiling tiles and fiberglass batting in front of the hole in the rim joist. I have inspected the outside around the garage and haven't been able to find any obvious places where outside air would be coming from. The draft is coming from the void into the basement.

I do have one of those thermometers and just did some testing. It's about 30 degrees outside now. Temp in laundry room is 62F, temp in garage is 41F and temperature at opening in the rim joist is 47F. So, if we get down around zero, the temperature in the void may drop below freezing.
 
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