Frozen condensate pipe prevention

[Ulsinus]

Now that the cold weather has passed it's time to sort out what I do to prevent a repeat of the frozen condensate pipe next year.

I have a newly installed Worcester combi boiler. The condensate pipe drains into an external soil stack (1960s property). External condensate pipe about metre long with a generous fall.

How can I prevent a repeat in future years.

The Worcester CondenseSure Condensate Siphon seems to be a possible solution.

Does anyone have experience of these?

Are there other ways?

Views please.

Many thanks.

 

[Harvest Fields]

Traceheat?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Any pics of the insulation atm ?

 

[Scott_D]

40mm waste pipe insulated with trace heating you can switch on at minus temps

 

[firemant]

Now that the cold weather has passed it's time to sort out what I do to prevent a repeat of the frozen condensate pipe next year.

I have a newly installed Worcester combi boiler. The condensate pipe drains into an external soil stack (1960s property). External condensate pipe about metre long with a generous fall.

How can I prevent a repeat in future years.

The Worcester CondenseSure Condensate Siphon seems to be a possible solution.

Does anyone have experience of these?

Are there other ways?

Views please.

Many thanks.

What size is current pipe?

 

[Ulsinus]

What size is current pipe?

At a guess 32mm

 

[Ulsinus]

Any pics of the insulation atm ?

There is no insulation at the moment.

 

[Ulsinus]

40mm waste pipe insulated with trace heating you can switch on at minus temps

Thank you for this suggestion. Any particular makes would you suggest I look at?

 

[townfanjon]

I have seen pics of insulated 40mm thats frozen solid

 

[Ulsinus]

Anyone have experience of fitting a Worcester CondenseSure Condensate Siphon?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

its very good but needs a flow pipe to fix onto

 

[gmartine]

Any chance of running the condensate internally to a waste outlet? Problem solved if you can.

 

[Welder]

3 realistic choices but let's look at why first.

Condensate pipes freeze because the sensible heat contained in a few drops of water are lost in an instant. There simply isn't the volume to hold much heat. The advice (originally by Corgi) to install a larger dia pipe for it to discharge into actually made things worse because the larger dia pipes encourage their own circulatory air currents making the sensible heat loss faster.

Insulation of a smaller pipe simply increases the time taken to lose heat. However even with the best of insulation, as we are talking such tiny amounts, a 50% improvement still amounts to naff all.

To stop it you have three realistic options:
1 - redirect it inside the house
2 - fit a condensate pump so that the discharge contains far more water (heat mass) so will not freeze so readily.
3 - Fit trace heating. This is the ONLY guaranteed way because it replaces the sensible heat lost by injecting replacement heat keeping the water liquid.