Ice Skating in Yard?
My back yard is completely paved in tiles that are pitched to a center water drain. Because of the rain, snow and cold weather these past several weeks the water has left what looks like a large ice skating pond. When the weather warmed up a few days ago, I melted the ice covering the…
My back yard is completely paved in tiles that are pitched to a center water drain. Because of the rain, snow and cold weather these past several weeks the water has left what looks like a large ice skating pond. When the weather warmed up a few days ago, I melted the ice covering the drain with boiling hot water, yet the underground pipe must be frozen because no water would penetrate. Now it is completely covered once again. I’m worried the underground pipe might bust from being frozen. Any suggestions?
fwiw, i have french, not plumbed, drains in my yard and basement. every basement and yard i know is similarly drained.
it sounds to me like its a french drain, and the volume of water is simply exceeding the earth’s capacity to absorb it, which makes sense. it’s been wet anyway, and you are adding a large volume of hot water.
Traditionalmod I can see that exact situation happening to me if I didn’t have my basement completely protected. Another flood that happened 2 years ago.
These are the exact same conditions that caused a big flood in our basement the first Spring we were in our house. Our roof gutter was broken and dumping into the back cemented portion of the yard, the drain was heavily iced over, and one night it rained heavily onto all the ice sending the water into our foundation because it had nowhere else to go.
It’s not legal to dump the water from the roof into your yard. Roof runoff has to go into a storm drain and the sewer. The drain you have in the tiles might only be a small, mud-filled old drywell which is why it doesn’t take in much water. Ours was like that. We reattached the roof gutter to the sewer and had a new, big drywell dug for the runoff from the backyard cement. But we still watch that drain and make sure it’s not iced over. We put salt on it.
I don’t know about the tiles generating heat, but I think that having the roof gutter-line draining into my yard contributes to all the water. I get the sun for a few hours in the morning, and because I have such a build-up of ice I don’t think it’s melting. Do to leaves clogging up the drain I previously covered it with mesh and haven’t had any problems with that situation, so I know that nothing but liquid has gone down the drain to clog it. That’s what makes me think the the water is frozen in the pipe.
Could be the trap is frozen but I doubt if it will break. There’s no water pressure to speak of on a trap so the water has room to expand.
There are a couple of things I can’t follow from your post. I’ve got a backyard that’s half shade in the summer, but gets a fair amount of sun in the winter. Right now, it’s covered with snow, not ice. Are your tiles holding or generating so much heat that they’re entirely melting all snow that’s fallen? Also, if I understand correctly, you tried to pour water down the drain, but it wouldn’t penetrate. That seems an indication that your pipe is clogged somewhere—more likely with debris than with ice (because if it were draining properly, water would never have have filled it entirely and then frozen solid). To where does this pipe normally drain?
I’m no contractor, but: aren’t sewer pipes etc… that are outside designed to be able to freeze? (especially in the northeast) If they weren’t, you would probably hear about sewer pipes bursting more often.
Do you think rock salt would rot the pipes?
What about hot automotive anti-freeze?
Or another antifreeze…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze
Cheap vodka maybe?