Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Dreamzchaser]

Frost free hydrants are the answer for having water at the coop, barn, whatever. A trench below the frost line, from water source to best location, and that hydrant. love them, we have four here. A pain to dig the trenches and fill them in, but convenient water all year is great!
Mary

Mrs. Mary, are those the ones that look like old fashion have to bring the lever down to get water out? I think those old things are beauty with a story,lol

 

[Folly's place]

Hydrant with residents, in summer, under the rubber bucket that stays over it when not in use. Love them!

Hydrant located outside coop, ready for winter. Froggies gone to hibernate.
Mary

 

[Dreamzchaser]

View attachment 2976244
Hydrant with residents, in summer, under the rubber bucket that stays over it when not in use. Love them!
View attachment 2976251
Hydrant located outside coop, ready for winter. Froggies gone to hibernate.
Mary

Dang! And I missed that. I love the look of those.

 

[saysfaa]

Are those hoses still connected to your freeze hydrant?

For newbies to it, unless the manufacturers have redesigned the hydrants in the last few years, you need at least a nozzle on the free end or at the very least to take the free end out of the water tank or it can contaminate your well with whatever might be in your hose or tank.

Best practice (and required at grade A dairies) is to detach the hose at the hydrant every time you shut the water off.

In the winter, if you don't at least drain the hose when you shut it off, it will freeze not just the hose but the hydrant too.

 

[aart]

Are those hoses still connected to your freeze hydrant?

For newbies to it, unless the manufacturers have redesigned the hydrants in the last few years, you need at least a nozzle on the free end or at the very least to take the free end out of the water tank or it can contaminate your well with whatever might be in your hose or tank.

Best practice (and required at grade A dairies) is to detach the hose at the hydrant every time you shut the water off.

In the winter, if you don't at least drain the hose when you shut it off, it will freeze not just the hose but the hydrant too.

Do these work like a frost free house hydrant, where the valve is inside the house wall and the water downstream of the valve can drain?

Wonders how the in-ground ones drain down stream of beyond the valve?

 

[saysfaa]

I see I had parts of it wrong. My appologies.

I called my brother, who dealt with the milk inspectors a lot more and a lit longer than I did (he was a dairy farmer for decades after I left it). He said the inspectors didn't absolutely require the hoses to be disconnected. You couldn't leave the end of the hose in the water tanks without an adequate check valve at the tank. And the reason had something to do with a risk of contaminating the water supply but we aren't sure how exactly. Dairy inspectors require far lower risks on a lot of things than a normal household would accept, for what that is worth.

Anyway, the other reason for disconnecting the hose in the winter is to keep the hydrant from freezing. That (between us we think) works much like a frost free house spigot.

 

[Folly's place]

It's not obvious from that picture, but it's a short hose that ends just above ground level, so it drains every time it's used. NEVER leave a hose in a filled water container!!!
A short hose that goes to water containers on the ground makes filling waterers easier, unless you use the hook on the hydrant to hold buckets. That hose died recently, so now I'm doing the bucket thing instead.
That particular hydrant is the best one, according to pros I've worked with. our cheaper big box store hydrants have been replaced (after a decade or two) with these. A bit harder to operate, but very sturdy!
And the bucket over the top shelters those adorable spring peepers, is an extra container always there, and nicer than ice covering in winter.
Mary

 

[1muttsfan]

Frost Free hydrants are the way to go if you have to carry water very far. Any hose has to be removed every time, drained, and stored someplace above freezing in the winter.
A few more tips, mostly learned the hard way -
-Dig your trench deep enough to get below the frost point. Remember this is much deeper in areas where you shovel or plow in the winter. The hydrants come in different lengths depending on how deep you need to bury them - 6' up here. Put sand at the bottom of the trench, and around the supply pipe, and foam board insulation on top of the sand before backfilling.
-In poorly draining soils, dig a deeper hole where the hydrant will stand, and fill with pea stone. This allows the water in the standing pipe, which drains out a release valve at the bottom when the handle is closed, to drain away from around the standing pipe.
- If properly adjusted, any water drawn back into the pipe when the hydrant is turned off will drain out below the hydrant and not back into the water line, but still better to pull the hose end out of water before turning the water off, to prevent contamination of your water line.
-Backfill with sand and/or pea stone, as you will inevitably eventually have to dig that sucker up.
-Always unhook the hose when turning the pump off (not necessary for a short bucket fill hose). Turn the handle on and off after removing the hose in the winter. If the hose is still attached, it might not be able to draw air down into the standing pipe, which leaves it full of water and at risk of freezing. Ours was maladjusted one year and we had to heat tape and run a stream of water all winter to keep the pipe from freezing, very inconvenient and a frozen icy mess.

 

[Folly's place]

All true above. Here our trenches are 4' deep, good in balmy southern Michigan! And we've had breaks at the base of the old hydrants, one of the reasons to replace them. Once in January, really not fun.
A project that needs to be done right the first time, or will be done over, especially with a poor quality hydrant.
Mary

 

[aart]

I only need to carry out a gallon jug with warm water to top off heated waterer.
EasyPeasy.