Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
I went out and bought heat tape today, and was surprised that it wasn't sold out. But once we figured out the problem, there's no way to put heat tape on this pipe. It's got a vertical 20-foot run squeezed in with three plumbing pipes/vents and at least one electrical conduit. We decided that it's best to trim off the hole and put an antique furnace vent grate over it. When the temperature drops below zero, we can then blow warm air into it, or I may even consider putting some sort of vent fan in it that we can turn on in extreme weather.
We've lived in the house for 28 years, and it's been a problem the whole time, but only when we have two or more days of consistent subzero weather. It's always been temporary enough that we sweated it out, but it's stressful. We finally decided to bite the bullet and poke through the plaster, and it was enlightening. The pipe was coming from a completely different direction than we've always thought.
|
It probably just needs some air flowing.
If it is a vertical pipe run (between 2 studs) cut the plaster and put a vent up high and one down low. A small return air type vent cover will hide the plaster you cut out.