Frozen hose

[PrettyPaisley]

We're still watering the animals in large buckets with a hose running about 350 feet from the house to the barn. How can I keep it from freezing up? Is there a manageable way without having to drain it every single day ?

[boxwoods]

I have a motor home down here in NC and I bought some pipe insulation and wrapped it around hose and tape the ends with duct tape. Works great

[Forerunner]

Do you have compressed air ?
A shot of that to clear the hose after each use will do the trick.
I'd hate to depend on such a length as 350 feet, but we do use 50-75 feet of hose through the winter. We have a gentle grade that we drag the length of it up after use, and, when "we're" careless, it's coiled up and in by the wood stove for a half hour or so.

When it gets in the single digits, we use buckets.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Bury it.

[springvalley]

I use a hose reel, put it in the heated milkhouse during the night, and like forerunner, use a bucket to carry when it`s very cold. > Marc

[Forerunner]

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

Bury it.

*whispers*

(that's what I did, and eliminated 275-300 feet of frozen liability....... but there's still that flexible, above-ground portion for convenience sake)

[littlebitfarm]

Have to say, the easiest thing in the long run, it to bury it. It's not in the way. No one mows it to pieces. No one drags it around the pasture cuz it is fun (I assume). Oh, yea, it won't freeze either.

They do make heated hoses. But at $150 for 50' you could pay someone to bury the hose.

Kathie

[catahoula]

If you are going to dig a trench to bury it you may as well buy a roll of black poly, tee off from where you are and put a hydrant where you want it. For what its worth and from what you are getting for responses we have all been there. I keep a hose in the shop myself. It's the price you pay for living in the land of ice and snow.

[willielisa]

How deep do you bury it? Just below frost line? Same problem here...

[TnAndy]

Originally Posted by catahoula

If you are going to dig a trench to bury it you may as well buy a roll of black poly, tee off from where you are and put a hydrant where you want it. For what its worth and from what you are getting for responses we have all been there. I keep a hose in the shop myself. It's the price you pay for living in the land of ice and snow.

Yep...go ahead and bury a line, ( and go 30" in your area ) along with a piece of 12-2 UF electric so you can plug in a stock tank heater, and maybe a light so you can feed/check on them after dark if need be. If you're gonna keep animals, best to set up to keep animals.

"we have all been there".......quoted for truth.

[Forerunner]

Here in the more frigid portion of zone 5, they recommend 42 inches, roughly, for all things frost-proof related, though the deepest frost I've ever seen was 24 inches, and I've done a lot of digging.

[chickenista]

We (and by 'we', I mean 'he) buried it as well.
I want to say that he placed the hose iside a more rigid black plastic hose/gutter pipe thingies as well.
So that if it needs to be replaced etc.. it can just be pushed through without digging up the yard again..

[Haven]

The frozen hose.

One of the 7 great (annoying) wonders of living in the north with animals.

[Barn Yarns]

bury it as deep as you can. i think most of mine is down 8-10 feet. some is only 7 tho.

the year our septic was installed, they never found the frost line when they dug to install the 1500 gallon tank

[willielisa]

Originally Posted by Barn Yarns

bury it as deep as you can. i think most of mine is down 8-10 feet. some is only 7 tho.

the year our septic was installed, they never found the frost line when they dug to install the 1500 gallon tank

It's funny the things I never think of living in KY, but a guy I worked with was from Wisconsin and his parents still lived there. He talked about how the snowfalls were bad, but the fact that once the snow started to fall it never melted until spring was worse because it 'all' piled up. I never thought about that! Yikes!

[PrettyPaisley]

Eventually-we will run a buried line with water and the electricity. For now-I need something temp and cheap. I'm thinking I'll price the insulation. Thanks !!

[am1too]

Originally Posted by PrettyPaisley

We're still watering the animals in large buckets with a hose running about 350 feet from the house to the barn. How can I keep it from freezing up? Is there a manageable way without having to drain it every single day ?

Put it in the ground below the frost line.

[gabbyraja]

As a piggy-back hijack to this thread, since someone mentioned it, any tutorials for adding buried electric out there, too? I need to do this next spring (for now it's a 20 ft walk to the animals, so we're just doing buckets, but next winter it will be be much farther), along with electric, and I'd rather do most of the work ourselves, if we can. Maybe we'll hire an electrician to do the hook up, but we can do the digging and laying of wire, at least, right? But we've never done anything remotely similar, so we'd need a detailed tutorial...

[uncle Will in In.]

Use a barrel or tank and haul the water out there with whatever you own that starts and and will run
to the barn, That would save you many steps to boot.

[notiller64]

If your burying a hose under a driveway you'll need to put it down further since driving will push down the frost in the ground.