Winters here in Ontario can get incredibly cold. This means it takes extra work to ensure that the water pipes both in the ground and inside the walls of the barns and stables don't freeze. When these pipes freeze, our water supply is cut off by the ice. Its also likely that the pipes themselves will burst due to the outward pressure created by ice, which expands as it turns from liquid to solid.
In our part of the province, the "frost line" lies 4' (1.2m) below the surface. This means that, in general, the 'top' 4' of earth will freeze in winter. As a consequence, all buried water lines in this freeze zone must be heated to prevent ice from forming. Here at Maximum Equestrian all of our in-ground water lines have a thin wire that runs down their length that heats up in the winter time to prevent freezing.
The barns and stables are another story.
In the early days of Maximum Equestrian, an inexperienced contractor was hired to install a new bathroom in the stables, including all the septic systems and water lines required to supply the new facility. Unfortunately, they cut many corners and did not follow industry best practices. One of their most astounding mistakes was to vent the septic tank directly into the bathroom itself! Gross.
As a consequence, two water lines burst inside the walls of our feed room this past winter. Dustin is impressed it hadn't happened sooner.
Much to our disbelief, this contractor had run plastic water lines through the wall to the outside, left them hanging in mid air, and then entered the next building! This was doomed to fail from the start.
So, this winter, Maximum Equestrian set to work to replace the poorly installed water lines. This was also an opportunity for improvement over the contractor's not-so-well-thought-out plan.
The first issue to address is how to bring water from one building to another. The gap between buildings is around 10' (3m). Instead of trying to bury a water line 4' into the ground to span this distance, we built an insulated bridge that has heated water lines for additional protection against the cold. The triangular shape is very rigid and can withstand the impact of frozen ice and snow falling onto the bridge from the roof. The aluminum cladding prevents rust and allows all water to run off easily. It also prevents any pests from infiltrating the system.
The second issue to address is the temperature of the stables themselves. Though the stables are relatively warm year-round due to the immense heat that the horses generate, daily tasks require the doors to be open for extended periods of time which can lower the temperature considerably. To prevent any ice from forming inside the stables, a closed loop system was created to continuously pump water in a circle from the far bathroom, to the main water supply in the feed room. This means our primary source of water in the barn and stables are constantly travelling through our 'bridge', which has heated water lines that are activated whenever the water temperature goes below 3° C (38°F).
We are incredibly pleased with the system and are looking forward to adding some other bells and whistles! Dustin is particularly excited about auto-filling water buckets!