Anti freeze in gas hot water heater??

[Bughunter]

It would work if you had a system that was sloped and installed
properly. If there was a low spot without a drain, to allow the air to
blow past, it only has to be a little clear to let the air past, and
could then allow water to pool. And for something like that, copper
would probably be easier to drain than PEX.

Thing is, if there was a sure-fire way to prevent pipes from freezing,
alot fewer plumbers would own nice trucks ;-).

DJ

What you need is a lot of volume, and not a lot of pressure. I routinely
blow the water out of my PEX pipe using the blowing end of a shop vac. It is
quite effective in getting out the water, even in the low spots. I open the
main drain in the basement, then go around to all the fixtures and blow out
the lines down into the basement. Seems to work well. The area that is most
susceptible to freezing in a PEX system is the manifold block. I hit that
with the shop vac before I close the place for the winter. So far, no
problems.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

What you need is a lot of volume, and not a lot of pressure. I routinely
blow the water out of my PEX pipe using the blowing end of a shop vac. It is
quite effective in getting out the water, even in the low spots. I open the
main drain in the basement, then go around to all the fixtures and blow out
the lines down into the basement. Seems to work well. The area that is most
susceptible to freezing in a PEX system is the manifold block. I hit that
with the shop vac before I close the place for the winter. So far, no
problems.

At my brother's vacation home (a trailer) in the Muskoka district the
main pipe runs from the tank at one end, down through the floor, and
slopes in a staight line, dropping about 10 inches to the other end of
the trailer where an outside "hydrant" is connected (frostproof
faucet) at the lowest point. All inside taps run UP from that pipe.
When he leaves after a winter weekend he simply shuts off the well
pump, opens the outside tap, and opens an air valve at the top of the
water heater tank. In a matter of minutes, all the water is drained
from the entire system except the trap in the crapper, which after a
final flush, gets a slug of propylene glycol.