We have an unusual plumbing challenge. The supply water line underneath the street makes a gooseneck and when the frost line descends, and cars drive over the road, it pushes the freeze down to the gooseneck (which is 6' under a main road in town (its called Broadway to give you perspective). The city passed an ordinance long ago to shunt the costs of poor construction eons ago to each home-owner. To repair this and prevent freezing is at least a $10,000 job.

It's an issue because we aren't in the building over the weekends, and thus the water isn't running in order to prevent a freeze. Three out of the past five years we've hauled water for 3-4 months waiting for the ground to defrost. One year, we were successful by putting a paper clip in one of the toilet flanges to create a slow drip, but last year somehow it worked loose and one weekend it froze.

I'm looking for a "permanent" drip maker that I can tune to just enough drip (I've heard 1 gallon/hour?) that can't accidentally be shut off. It'll need to run for a few months. Yes, the water bill goes up, but nothing like the $10k to tear up the road.

Suggestions?

it seems like lawn sprinkler companies have something like you want.

1 GPH drip emitter.

contact one of those companies and have a talk with them.

[www.dripirrigation.com]

I looked into those, but I still need to jury rig it to attach to some form of internal plumbing that will drain. I can't run it outside. It gets to -30F sometimes...

Another alternative is to not run a drip, but have sometime like a "flush toilet once every three hours" kind of thing-- some longer span but a pulse of water movement.



Edited 1 times.

Disconnect the hot side washer hose to your washer, stick it down the washer stand pipe, then open the hot washer valve a tiny tiny bit?

What about one of those floor drain primers could that work?

[www.uswatersystems.com]
I'd set the solenoid up with hose barbs and use sum's idea of using the washing machine



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Great ideas. I'm going to start w/ the pressure regulator and a drip irrigation nozzle running into the washing machine drain and see how much water that uses during November. Freeze risk really starts late Dec/Jan. Option B will be a solenoid on a timer to add a more substantial run but less frequent, also into the washing machine drain. Thanks for the suggestions!
Dayna

I like the belt and suspenders approach.

do both..

the solenoid will make sure the water won't freeze while the tiny 1 GPM drip will help when the solenoid is closed.