Frost resistant pipes - any dairy farmers?

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ironhorse

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We have been fetching water from the house to the yard for nearly a week as the drinkers all froze first, followed by the two taps. Much of the pipework is the standard blue plastic stuff, with foam insulation.
But is there any material avaialbe that we could replumb with after the thaw so we keep running next time?
What on earth do they do on dairy farms, where they obviously need vast quantities of water!?
 
I'd like to know too - all our pipes/drinkers/taps are frozen and only the house taps are working, although as we have no heating one of those froze last year and we had a lovely indoor fountain when it thawed!!!:D - and it was frozen here for 6 weeks last year - 6 weeks of buckets with 14 horses drinking a dustbin full in 24hrs each, I'm dreading that happening again - aaaagh!!!!:D
 
Interesting question, but google has not been my friend on this.

I know the defra advice is to consider euthanasia if the welfare needs of animals cant be met because of the weather, this: http://www.nfuonline.com/Your-sector/Dairy/News/Dairy-and-the-big-chill---briefing/ is dairy specific from the NFU but says nowt about pipes.

I assume the dairy farmers struggle like everyone else! I think the Uni dairy unit at Trawsgoed had problems last week with the parlour being frozen. The met reported -12 there but on the farm they reckoned more like -15 :eek:

Heat tracing wires are supposed to be good if you can fit them for protecting pipes.
 
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To a certain extent, there are large numbers in dairy and beef herds so with them all drinking at different times plus the heat they give off that usually keeps things flowing in the sheds. Possibly too, they might lay their pipes further underground than the normal house which would help. In parlours a lot use those heat blowers to keep things flowing but many still get frozen up which makes life bally difficult.
 
They have some sort of heated pipes/hoses in America, so I've heard. Where I come from, -20 is not an unusual occurrence, but water is still delivered in the same standard blue pipe, it's an upgrade from lead/copper :D The water works are a minimum of 1.2 m underground, which helps.
Other than that - loads and loads of lagging, I have the foam lagging, then wrapped up in insulation, then bubble wrap, then paper bags and then plastic. Every single pipe and tap on the farm is working just fine. Where the pipes are coming out from the ground, they are wrapped up and covered with well rotted manure.
 
I'm not a dairy farmer, but I have lived in Scandinavia and the USA where it gets -20/-25 every winter... so this is a familiar topic.

Exposed pipes will freeze really easily -so martlin's advice is very good. For anything in the ground, straw ane horse manure works well since it gives off heat.

For the part of the pipes which come out of the ground in the stable, if nothing else, you can buy foam plates or even insulation plates, cut a strip so that it wraps around the pipe and fix with gaffa tape.

The other key to keep the pipes open is to have water flowing constantly, even if it is a small trickle. It doesn't freeze if you can keep it moving.

If your pipes are already frozen watch out, since you may have a water leak on your hands when they thaw :-(

If they are frozen in the ground you won't be able to thaw them until summer, but if it is just the tap area that is frozen it may be possible to thaw it for example using hot water and by using a small fan heater, if you can find one that is safe for outdoor use.

A small heater can also help if you have 1 vital tap on the yard as a last resort to make sure it doesn't freeze, but make sure there is no fire security issues with using the heater.
 
I turn off the main yard tap at the mains on the 1st hint of frost.

To do this, I leave the tap going (open) then open the man-hole & turn off at the stop-cock.
The next day, I then open the main again & with only one exception this week - its been going ok. The key is to leave main tap open as this expels much of the water in the 'up-pipe' when I turn off on the stop-cock.
Next door have not had water running for over a week now, but their LL wont let them turn off at the mains.

Am lucky tho as have old fashioned metal pipework still, and the main tap is only 4 foot from the stop-cock.
 
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