Frozen water

[Leam_Carrie]

The current freeze is meaning very thick ice on my plastic water trough. Normally they just break it and keep drinking (you can see it freezing at different levels overnight). But this is something else.

My outside tap is frozen as well.

I’m taking buckets over a couple of times a day filled in the kitchen. Any tips on stopping / reducing freezing? They don’t seem thirsty, but it doesn’t seem a good situation.

 

[Tiddlypom]

Do you sieve out the ice from the trough when you’ve broken the ice? That helps to delay refreezing.

Add hot water too, if you can.

I’ve been thawing out my yard tap every day by using a hair dryer on it.

 

[Winters100]

A few times a day you need to empty the trough and totally replace the water. At night (assuming your horses are coming in) bring it inside if you have a barn arrangement. If there is nowhere warm to keep it just empty it for the night, or (as I do) have a few, and ask whoever turns out to take a fresh one and fill it every morning. In very cold weather it is not efficient to have the troughs too full, better to remove ice and re-fill little and often. Regarding the tap covering with foam and taping it on should be enough in the UK.

 

[Lots of Gift Bags]

I break the ice in the troughs daily and take the broken ice out. The troughs add large enough to cope with a few days of not being refilled if necessary.
I take a couple of large bott!es of warm water to the yard with me and pour them steadily into the tap, leave it in an on position with a bucket underneath and within a couple of minutes it's running.

 

[paddy555]

I found an improvement this frozen session. I got fed up of carrying water and it hurt the tendons in my arms so I keep one tap going and abandon the rest if necessary. The one I can get going with a hot air gun and I leave it well insulated. Then I bought a hosepipe, one of the X hose types that collapse into nothing. I keep it in a container in the house. That goes on the tap and I walk around filling buckets and troughs with the hose. A lot easier and no carrying buckets.

 

[Suechoccy]

Take out frozen ice (not with bare hands as that hurts - use a clean shovel or skip or fork). Pour a thermos of hot water into the unfrozen trough.

 

[AdorableAlice]

I’ve just been back to mine, yard thermometer saying minus 3 but the wind chill is breath taking. All troughs and buckets frozen over. They all wanted the buckets of warm water I did for them. Colic worries me when it gets this cold. Hopefully warmer soon.

 

[Yebor]

Leave the tap running ever so slightly, running water is harder to freeze, also pipes can have electrically heated tape wrap that you wrap the pipe with then insulate with pipe lagging. Ive installed these for customers but never found the need myself yet.

Personally I wrap the tap with a wooly hat, and some plastic, then put some carpet underlay over it to further the insulation. Been down to touching -10 this winter and its not frozen yet, and ive put thick foam pipe lagging over the entirity of the pipe, even when its under ground. Touch wood.

Regards

Yebor

 

[scats]

We have a hat for our tap- well, 2 hats. One is one of those polystyrene tap insulator things and then we have a dustbin stuffed inside with old shavings bags and material. We’ve made it so that it slots over the tap easily.
Even this has failed this week though!

 

[Frano]

I remove large chunks of ice then add hot after which melts the rest. Having to carry water in car for horses, Everything in field frozen, trough and pond.

 

[laura_nash]

Leave the tap running ever so slightly, running water is harder to freeze

We've just had a text from our water co-op reminding us that doing this is against the co-op rules and could lead to you being disconnected and / or charged for the water if caught doing it. They monitor the water flow looking for leaks so being caught isn't impossible either.

 

[laura_nash]

Add hot water too, if you can.

Someone on another thread explained that adding hot water makes it refreeze quicker, as warmer water freezes faster. Makes no sense to me, but they seemed to know what they were talking about. Of course if it encourages the horses to have a drink whilst it's warmer it might still be a good idea.

 

[Lots of Gift Bags]

Someone on another thread explained that adding hot water makes it refreeze quicker, as warmer water freezes faster. Makes no sense to me, but they seemed to know what they were talking about. Of course if it encourages the horses to have a drink whilst it's warmer it might still be a good idea.

I've not seen that post but I'm pretty sure it's incorrect. Warm water will adjust to it's surrounding temperature settings quickly, so if you put 2 glasses of water, one at 60 degrees and one at 30 degrees, both in a room at 0 degrees, the warmer glass will cool quicker as it adjusts to the surrounding temperature but it's won't freeze any faster.

 

[TPO]

I've been putting warm water and kettles of water into stable buckets.

Also floating apples and plastic bottles/milk bottles of warm water. It helps a little but theyve still been freezing overnight. Also QH kept trying to eat the plastic so he has nothing ?

My dad told me the hot water freezing theory the other day. Apparently salt or something is removed when water is hot and therefore it freezes faster?

 

[Lots of Gift Bags]

I've looked it up, it appears that hot water CAN freeze faster than cold water! It doesn't always though, and no-one seems to know why yet.

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I found an improvement this frozen session. I got fed up of carrying water and it hurt the tendons in my arms so I keep one tap going and abandon the rest if necessary. The one I can get going with a hot air gun and I leave it well insulated. Then I bought a hosepipe, one of the X hose types that collapse into nothing. I keep it in a container in the house. That goes on the tap and I walk around filling buckets and troughs with the hose. A lot easier and no carrying buckets.

We have an x-hose, it is certainly better than carrying buckets, especially as the route to take them into the field would be complicated, up steps, through a gate etc. The drawback is that you have to stand with it, as it fills the buckets. Using the normal hosepipe, means that you can leave it pouring into the bucket and do other jobs. Currently poor sister, who is doing my jobs while I am off games, got completely frozen herself doing the waters yesterday, as our horses are living out.

 

[PapaverFollis]

I kind of think the mpemba effect is one of those theoretical things that happens under certain conditions but isn't all that applicable for real life. I don't think a bucket with a kettle poured in (just lukewarm or edge taken off cool) would freeze faster than a bucket of just cold water. I've been wrapping buckets in stables in straw to insulate them. They sit on the bed with straw packed around the sides. My outdoor buckets are just ice cubes though. The Beast eats them. ? I do put lukewarm water out for them too but she seems to prefer to eat ice and snow.

 

[Leam_Carrie]

Thanks everyone.

Was hoping there was a trick I was missing. Went over with a thermos of boiling water and buckets of lukewarm water this morning. Took all the ice out (have been a bit slack at taking it all out).

Glad it gets warmer tomorrow.

 

[paddy555]

We have an x-hose, it is certainly better than carrying buckets, especially as the route to take them into the field would be complicated, up steps, through a gate etc. The drawback is that you have to stand with it, as it fills the buckets. Using the normal hosepipe, means that you can leave it pouring into the bucket and do other jobs. Currently poor sister, who is doing my jobs while I am off games, got completely frozen herself doing the waters yesterday, as our horses are living out.

that is a point but the reason I use an x hose is because whatever hose I use will have to come into the house to stop it freezing and the X fits very nicely into a small container.

 

[Polos Mum]

I've been putting a kettle of boiling water in their stable buckets several times a day - surprising how they drink immediately once it's warmed up

The wind chill is quite dramatic

Yesterday I couldn't break the trough water with either a pick axe or me standing on it jumping up and down

 

[Tiddlypom]

OH reported that the horses that he just passed out in their field on a posh private yard were pounding at the frozen puddles in their field and were trying to drink the water from them .

Maybe these horses prefer puddle water, and they have plenty of other unfrozen fresh water that they could be drinking...

 

[maya2008]

Ours breaks easily daily and the ponies have been breaking it themselves. We are using hot water to melt the ice, so as not to have to take any more to the yard than necessary (no mains water, it always comes from the house!).

 

[Yebor]

We've just had a text from our water co-op reminding us that doing this is against the co-op rules and could lead to you being disconnected and / or charged for the water if caught doing it. They monitor the water flow looking

Hows a dripping tap use more water than filling a trough, using the hose pipe, or taking a few baths during a day? Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[sport horse]

Leave the tap running ever so slightly, running water is harder to freeze, also pipes can have electrically heated tape wrap that you wrap the pipe with then insulate with pipe lagging. Ive installed these for customers but never found the need myself yet.

Personally I wrap the tap with a wooly hat, and some plastic, then put some carpet underlay over it to further the insulation. Been down to touching -10 this winter and its not frozen yet, and ive put thick foam pipe lagging over the entirity of the pipe, even when its under ground. Touch wood.

Regards

Yebor

Leaving tap running is not exactly environmentally friendly!! Also not great if you have a water meter. I have had the electric tape on pipes for best part of 50 years and it is brilliant. Always got at least one tap on yard working by flicking a switch when frost is due. Uses very little electric too.

 

[tatty_v]

For removing the chunks of ice from the water trough I can thoroughly recommend sealskin gloves - warm and totally waterproof!

 

[Griffin]

We fill water containers and leave them in the tack room where there is a heater on a frost setting overnight, so they don't freeze.

With the field waters, I favour a kettle full of boiling water and something hard and metal to break the ice with.

 

[Lipglosspukka]

For removing the chunks of ice from the water trough I can thoroughly recommend sealskin gloves - warm and totally waterproof!

Having never heard of these, I had to Google them in horrified anticipation.

Very pleased they are not made of seal ?

 

[windand rain]

Bunch of softies I just lift it out with my hands. Never have cold hands though so probably why. We have been carrying water in the van from our house the 8 miles to the field daily. I have also brought the soaked feeds home and soaking them in the kitchen

 

[Abby-Lou]

Yipee tap thawed at lunch time just when I was going to have to start bringing water from home

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I wrap my tap in a small towel there was only 1 day this week that it didn't thaw at all.