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| 6" Stove pipe goes down thur the floor into crawl space. |
Two nights ago high winds (80k) double-drafted our Blaze King Wood stove during the night and it burnt out all the wood, some what like blowing over an open fire. We woke up to a cold cabin and frozen water lines. Now this usually doesn't happen until it is -35 . C. but here it was only -21 and all frozen up. The old timers used to use a damper half way up the stove pipe but it has it's draw backs.... hard to clean the stove pipe and also a major cause of cabin fires.
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| Hair dryer lying at bottom of pic is used to heat the small pump areas |
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| Mr Heater Portable Buddy |
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| There is a 6" duct fan in this pipe which runs anytime the generator is on. |
The system we have now for heating the crawl space is some 6" stove pipe installed right beside the Blaze King going down into the crawl space and going out alone the floor towards the water pump area. There is a 6" duct fan in the pipe downstairs which comes on every time the generator runs. It draws the hot air from the stove area down into the crawlspace where our veggies, supplies and water system are located. Even with it running each night for a few hours the crawl space hovers around 1 to 3.c.
When the water system freezes up it requires the use of the hairdryer and also the Mr Heater Portable Buddy (uses 1 lb propane bottles and there is an adapter that is available for 20 lbs..... on our shopping list). Takes an hour or two.
This summer we are thinking about putting in floor pipe down around the 4' area around the perimeter and make up a water jacket for the Blaze King wood stove. We'd put the potatoes, carrots etc in the middle of the room. We are also going to buy more 6" stove pipe so that the pipe beside the stove goes right up to the ceiling where most of the hot air is. then we might have to install another fan if the draw isn't enough.
The lack of snow for insulation around the bottom of the cabin is hurting us this year also. We only have 1 foot of snow here at 1500 ft elevation when at this time last year we had 6'. Up in the hi valleys there is 4' instead of 12'.
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Hey Trappers over here we have had lots of cold weather and burst and frozen pipes. It would help your pipes if you lagged them with old rags or some insulation .After a burst pipe at my parents I lagged pipes and jammed in insulation where I could and there's been no problems since .Hope you get your pipes thawed out :)
ReplyDeleteFrozen pipes are not fun.
ReplyDeleteWe are at -33 right now here in Ft. Nelly.
Stay warm.
Thawing a frozen water pipe should not be done harshly.
ReplyDeleteIt may be completely covered in thick ice, but you should never think of using an open flame to melt the ice. You should be patient and try to turn up the heat in the house.
Hair dryers and small portable heaters are some other ways to thaw the pipes.