Vacuum Relief Valves in Faucet Lines to Drain Water & Prevent Freezing?

Vacuum Relief Valves in Faucet Lines to Drain Water & Prevent Freezing?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    1

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Ken Davido

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We own a mountain cabin in Chelan County, WA state. During the winter we drain all the hot and cold water lines before we leave to prevent frozen pipes. We've installed electric valves in the crawl space at the lowest point in the water lines to make the process easier/faster. But, we still need to open all the faucets in the cabin to allow gravity draining of the lines and this still takes several minutes to complete. My question is: Can we install Vacuum Relief Valves (e.g. http://www.cdivalve.com/products/detail/model-vr25-vr38-vr75-vr10) in some or all of the faucet supply lines in the house to allow automatic drainage?
 

Reach4

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I don't know what the appropriate valve would be. You would want it to open readily. One designed to prevent a water heater from imploding may open readily enough, but I don't know if it would open readily enough to prevent a pipe from draining. I am not a plumber or other pro.
 

Terry

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I would still open all of the faucets. Any faucet not opened up is a place where it can freeze.
Yes, want you show works at the location it's installed at, but you have many locations that need to be drained down.

When I'm cutting pipes to solder a new fitting on, or to replace a shutoff at the wall, I open everything up to get all of the water to drain down quicker. Otherwise it can take hours.
 

Jadnashua

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Your ideal situation may be to configure the system to be able to install an air pressure chuck and blow the lines dry with an air compressor. Draining can be inhibited by inadequate slope in the lines - it could pool or not drain, potentially allowing freezing to damage the pipes or fixtures.
 
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