Overwintering - draining down

[DerekJ]

Any advice on what we should do regarding the water system in our secondaire to safely overwinter it.

No wet system central heating but the usual kitchen/bathroom/loos water pipes.

Should we drain down?  Does this simply mean turning off at the main stopcock, turning on all taps and flushing toilets until no more water runs?

The water heating is via an electric immersion heater. This is situated in the garage and I've lagged the visible pipes.

The house is at about 1200 feet up up in the Parc

Régional Naturel des causses du Quercy.

We were also thinking of adding some salt in the u-bend of the toilet.

Any advice gratefully received.

[Northender]

We are only about 280m above sea level in the Lot but we always drain down every Winter .We spent a week there in February 2005 and the overnight temperature reached -20C.

You seem to have everything pretty well covered , I always drain the Chauffe-eau even though it seems very well lagged (internally).

My cautiousness seems to have paid off over the last 12 years the only problem being a shower mixer cartridge blowing.I now open the mixer tap and leave the shower head in the tray.

[Hoddy]

We drain everything too including the chauffe-eau. Acting on advice given on this forum many years ago, we fill small plastic bottles with pebbles and put them in each loo. This has worked for us for the last six years.

Hoddy   

[DerekJ]

Northender, Hoddy.  Thanks for your advice. I'm not at the house at the moment but will go back shortly and drain down as suggested.

As far as draining down the chauffe-eau I think I will need to do more than close off the water supply and open all hot water taps. I'm presuming I'll need to open up and some of the drain valves adjacent to the the chauffe-eau in the garage. I've attached a photo of the setup.

I'm not sure exactly what the stopcock valve is relation to the main house stopcock (roadside with the meter). I'm presuming I'll need to turn the garage stopcock off as well?

There are a couple of additional taps that you can see in the photo that I haven't labelled which are just for the washing machine (not fitted yet) I believe.

We also have a dishwasher installed in the kitchen... not sure what the best way to drain that would be.. or if I need to?

As you can tell, plumbing isn't my forte!

btw, all the visible pipes in this photo have since been lagged.

[img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e170/DerekJordan/French%20house/plumbing.jpg?t=1226479328[/img]

[Cacknanty]

We also blew compressed air through the hot and cold system opening a different tap in turn. Just to help get rid of any water in low points.

Previously we have left the water in the chauffe eau and not had a problem, I 'bottled' it this year and emptied it, took all night and kept us awake.

Last year we had a broken WC pan on our return in the spring, gone the salt route this winter as well as our usual 2 sticks.

Hopefully next spring we will not have any Niagra falls issues when we turn the water on !

[DerekJ]

Thanks Cacknanty. I hadn't thought of going as far as blowing the system through with compressed air.

One thing that  has just occured to me is that once I have the water turned off  will the water flow freely through the opened taps and toilet systems (especially upstairs) until the pipes are pretty much empty?

I thinking about what pressure will be in the system to push the water through.

[WendyG]

Our plumber put anti-gel in our central heating system years ago and so far, touch wood, we have not had a problem.

As far as the rest is concerned, we turn off outside at the mains and drain everything down.  Salt in outside loo pan.  Our walls are very thick and even on the coldest winter day the temperature even in outbuildings is noticeably higher than outside.  The most essential thing is to turn off at mains as heard of some people who left their house, had a burst, and had water pouring through for weeks with resultant appalling damage.

At least if you are there when water goes back on you can rescue situation in the event of there being a problem burst.

Good luck and here's hoping fornot too cold a winter.

WendyG

[Northender]

If you decide to drain off the Chauffe-eau , you will need to manually open the groupe de security ( the pressure safety valve ) after you have turned off the cold feed. . You can see it on the photo directly under the tank it as a blue plastic knob , which you quarter turn.I find it helps to drain quicker if you open a hot tap somewhere.You may get some spillage initially.

[DerekJ]

Wendy, Thanks.  When we last left the house a few weeks ago we turned the mains water off (as we do after every visit regardless of time of year) but since we've been back in England we've come to realise that this might not be sufficient. As I've a couple of jobs I'd like to do anyway I'm going back to France in a week or so and will sort out the water draining.  As we don't have a wet heating system that's one job I don't have to do.

I'm coming to realise this might not be a 5 minute job though. I previously planned to complete my jobs then get up early(ish) to start my journey home and do the drain down in a few minutes before I leave. This clearly isn't realistic so I'll take my time and do it the night before leaving.

Northender... Thanks again.  One question regarding the groupe de security valve please...  I've never looked at this in any detail. Is there a drain outlet as part of the valve (perhaps hidden from view by the white plastic cover below the blue valve)? I'm presuming from your comment regarding spillage that there probably is? On that basis will I be able to connect a house pipe to it?

Sorry for all the dumb questions.[8-)][:$]

[Cacknanty]

The drain outlet is the 'white plastic cover' and it is out of this that some splashing can occur. We started to drain it off at about 8pm and it didn't finish till about 6am. As it (the Chauffe Eau, CE) is in our en suite it kept us awake with its gurgling and bubbling. We did have a hot tap turned on too. A Dutch chap in the village has designed a special pipe to connect up the GdS, I couldn't use it as our CE  is on a tripod stand and there wasn't enough clearance. Not sure how it worked but I'll find out and post here in due course.

The compressed air joblet took minutes in the morning, one person holding the compressor gun into a shower pipe, the other running around turning taps on and off. Kept a bucket of water by the loo for the ladies to do their final tiddle before the drive home. We also remove the shower heads and leave to drain as we have bought a few due to leaking after a freezing winter.

Have fun.

[DerekJ]

Cacknanty.  Thanks a lot for your patience and perseverance... much appreciated.

OK, I get it now (I think)....  so when I open the blue valve, water exits into the white plastic "bit"(and within that splashes around a bit) and then drains out down the grey plastic pipe into a waste/overflow that disappears into the garage floor - have I understood that correctly. I don't have an air compressor so I'll have to do my best.  At least the CE is in the garage so hopefully I'll get to sleep.[:)]

You made me laugh with your cooments about the bucket of water.  Given that I'm going to start all this off the night before leaving I'm going to have to make sure I have sufficient water for the necessities bottles up before I turn off the water.... what fun!

[Cacknanty]

Yep, you've got it.

You shouldn't need to turn the water off at the stopcock, as Northender says there should be a tap on the cold feed into the CE. can't see it on your pic, assume it is behind the CE. If memory serves it is a quarter turn with a blue lever. So you should have water to your other facilities for the morning, just no hot water.