Hose will probably freeze going to my garage pretty soon

[Drizzle]

So I run a hose from my house to my garage to fill my drum barrels...I got my R.O. filter in my garage too.

I'm worried with the snow season here coming up that my hose will freeze if I run it. It takes a good 3 hours to fill my 55 gallon drums running thru my R.O. filter. Will that running water freeze? The hose line in my basement has padded insulation around it when it gets close to the wall to the outside. That might help.

I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't risk the water line repairs from my hose and start filling my drum barrels with my R.O. filter in my basement and when I water my plants use a sump pump from the barrels in my basement out a window to my garage, straight to the plants.

thoughts?

 

[squiggly]

Running water shouldn't freeze over a period of 3 hours--minimize the length of hose outside and consider getting a heat gun with a variable setting (i.e. not a shitty one) to hit it. If you have a thermometer (IR or otherwise) keep an eye on your output temp--if you start dropping near freezing start tagging the line with heat. You can obviously also insulate the hose itself, etc, etc.

Just engineer your way around it--it shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

 

[kolah]

Running and even trickling water does not freeze. As long as the water is moving it won't freeze.

They sell electric tape that you can wrap around the hose to keep it warm.

Try and position your hose in the best amount of daytime sunlight

You could also drain the hose once your tanks are full.

 

[fishwhistle]

Kolah is right running water is alot harder to freeze,in the plumbing section at home depot you can find cheap foam pipe insulation,the slit is precut so you just slide your hose into it.My buddy lives in the mountains and we ran PVC and then used some of those cheap thick foam swimming pool noodles and duct tape to insulate it and he never has a problem,or you can just bury it and use the dirt for insulation if your ground doesnt freeze too hard.

 

[squiggly]

Running and even trickling water does not freeze. As long as the water is moving it won't freeze.

They sell electric tape that you can wrap around the hose to keep it warm.

Try and position your hose in the best amount of daytime sunlight

You could also drain the hose once your tanks are full.

Careful here--this really is a temperature dependent argument. There are entire waterfalls which freeze in winter in some places. While I agree that its unlikely to happen in such a short span of time, it is certainly not impossible--especially without knowing what kind of temps he's looking at.

 

[kolah]

Sorry squiggs...but we ain't talking about waterfalls, their mist and their exposure to air.... we're talking about cold water moving through a hose in cold outside temperatures.

Not far from me I have an natural artesian well which barely trickles up with very little pressure and it exits through a 1/2" inch piece of pipe. At night in the dead of winter it will be -10 to -25 below for weeks and it never freezes up. Sometimes (although quite rare) some ice will form around the inside diameter of the pipe but it never closes up completely and the water continues to flow.

Try not to over-think and analyze simplistics.
Common sense, trial and error and observation are nice things.

 

[squiggly]

For sure, was just erring on the side of caution here. I figure there's not way it'd freeze in a 3 hour period regardless of the conditions. Freezing moving water takes for freakin' ever (because movement = heat = energy on a thermodynamic level).