Heat Strip Battery backup
 

Hi,
I use heat strips in the crawl space of the house to keep the pipes from freezing, and occasionally the power goes out. Anybody know a cheap way to put the power heat strip on some kind of battery backup in case the power is off for several hours?

Tx
Dan

How many watts is your heat strip? The wattage is probably way to high for battery backup to be practical. You could use a UPS like what is used for computer backup. But an affordable one will probably only give you minutes.

A better answer is to insulate the pipes. However be careful that the heat strip can be used under insulation.

You'll find that it is going to be extremely cost prohibitive to try to provide any sort of heat from a battery bank. The current required would kill most normal batteries in a short period of time (shorter than it would take for the pipes to freeze).

A mid-sized generator with an auto-start/auto-transfer switch is the only rational way to accomplish what you want, without a cost the likely exceeds the value.

You are correct in stating the above and use of a generator, but yet still very expensive. Cheapest way is to come up with a real quick drain down and bring back up system. All my old places had just that and I was able to drain the whole house down in less than 10 minutes and have it up and running in the same length of time. That was even being done in a crawl space :)

drain down
 

I agree on the drain down idea, I think I'll bite the bullet and set it up for a quick drain. I'll install an inside hatch(in the utility closet floor) to get access to the shut off and drain in the crawl space. I just had Basement Systems come in and seal the crawl space, put in french drains and a nice sump pump. I'll need to run a line from the drain to the sump pump, which shouldn't be a problem.

It never ends does it.

Thanks for the advice, was hoping to get off easy but I should know better.

Dan:)

question
 

What do you do about the sink traps and toilet? I can easily set the system to drain all the pipes but there is still water in the pump and filter as well.

how to weather a moderate power failure
 

you can put pink non-toxic antifreeze in your toilet and traps. As for your pump and filter: First put them in an insulated pumphouse, if not already done. Then add a 100 watt lightbulb in the pumphouse for heat (tap into pump power for this and keep away from combustibles). Finally, place as many jugs or 2 liter bottles full of water on the floor of your pumphouse that will physically fit. Try to surround the pump. When AC is present, the bulb will keep the pumphouse toasty warm and will gradually heat up all the water that is present. In the event of a power failure, the large mass of warm water will give back its heat and it will take many, many hours for all the water to cool to the point where the pump and filter are in danger of freezing. For you physicists, materials do not like to change state, the "latent heat of fusion" requires significant energy to go from liquid to solid (freeze) which means it really has to be cold to get all that stored water (including what is in the pump tank) to freeze. During the big ice storm a half-dozen years ago in January, this system kept a pump protected in this manner from freezing for 3 days - ample time to respond to the problem by draining and preparing the system for storage.

Drain down
 

All pumps have drain down plugs on them. I just put in small shut off valves in the place of plugs then I did pour the non toxic RV anti-freeze in until it came out and just left it with the shut offs still open. The line coming into the house was under ground below the freeze line so I had a drain draw off in it with the long T handle to open it and drain down the higher end that could freeze. It all sounds hard and time taking, but anything that is worth doing, it is worth doing it right. The basement sinks and stuff that were at the lowest point I put sill cocks in the toilet fill and sink fill lines and just opened them up to drain down into a coffee can and again leave open. The time is setting up your pipes so that 90% drains off into one location and once that is done it is a snap to close up and open up. Best of luck and if you go this way, spend your time figuring out the best way to drain and then go for it. :)