giant homemade nipple waterer question

[DMRippy]

I use a 55 gal drum to feed 4 coops/runs. It is all fed with pvc pipes and have no problems(I don't fill it more than 30 gals at a time). Now i have not used them through a winter yet and was hoping for suggestions. I have read to use heated tape for pipes to keep from freezing and a submersible heater. I am going to give that a try, but if all else fails, reg waters. We don't usually have sever weather here so I am hoping this will not be a big deal, but it does get below zero here for a week at a time every once in a while.

I am hoping the 55 gal drum will not freeze if we keep the wind off of it but we will see.

 

[wyododge]

Quote:
The nipples must be mounted facing down (vertical), if they are horizontal, they will leak.

GOOD NEWS THOUGH!!!


Here is our solution to the very same problem.

We built an insulated box and put a spray tank in it, but a 55 gallon drum or two would work also...

Inside the tank, there is a stock tank heater, and a submersible pump.

the garden hose from the pump runs up to the ceiling, through the wall and down into the nipple waterers in the coop. (our coop is the old tack room of our barn). The waterer has a bird bath de-icer in it to keep it from freezing, and the hose gravity drains so it wont freeze either.

Ok, now this is the really cool part... 130 gallons of storage, we have 26 birds, they drink about 2 gallons a day, I only have to fill the tank once a month at the MOST!!!

now for the really REALLY cool part, the outlet for the pump is on a light switch, so all my darling wife has to do to fill the waterer is, YAWN, flip a switch...

NOW HOW COOL IS THAT!!!

You don't need the box, but we got 'damaged' 2" rigid insulation panels for $5 bucks each. they will pay for them selves. you dont even need the osb on the outside, but the mice here would dismantle it in a matter of days if we didn't. heck you could use old blankets. You don't need a real expensive submersible pump either, just something to lift 2 gallons of water, once a day.

you may notice a grocery bag on top of the water tank, that is a bag of potatoes. The box provides constant 40* cold storage all winter long. Pretty neat huh???

 

[wyododge]

Quote:
You could put a hose connector at the end of each pvc run and run a circulation pump through the system. If you had a stock tank heater in the drum, you could hook the pump to a thermal cube and the pump would only come on when a danger of freezing exists. Great part is, pvc is a horrible conductor, so you would not need much circulation at all, maybe 1/2 gallon a minute per run.

our experience with heated tape out doors is that it is VERY unreliable. Heck it's not very reliable indoors either. BUT, we have rather extreme winters here, so your experience may be different.

 

[speedy2020]

I am building 55gal one with nipples for my parent. The 100-200watt submersible aquarium heater will keep the water from freeze up during winter.