I'm trying to revamp all of my dads "engineering" at the ranch water system before cold weather hits. The chunks of old towels and carpet in the valve boxes to the house and barns have all rotted away. Any suggestions?

New towels and carpet.

Seriously, all we used was either insulation or old torn up towels and never had issues.

giddings_ag_06 said:

---

New towels and carpet.

Seriously, all we used was either insulation or old torn up towels and never had issues.

---

That thought had occurred to me, but I thought there might be a better way…..

Does the barn have heat? If no, you best defense is shut and drain.

Ragoo said:

---

Does the barn have heat? If no, you best defense is shut and drain.

---

If I happen to be there during an extreme event, that is the plan. One line serves the barn (unheated), pens, and deer hunters. I'm guarding against that 15-20 degree morning with nobody there. The main house line is separate with its own boxes, and multiple risers/faucets. I'm re-insulating those and marking them better.

It's 5 1/2 hours one way for me, and my nearby siblings have made it plain that they will not go up there and work independently.

After wrapping, I cut a couple of holes in an old Styrofoam cooler (the kind we got a meat shipment in) I had laying around and slipped it over our main supply line by the garage.

Add this

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-30-ft-Automatic-Electric-Heat-Cable-Kit-HC30A/100196471

Insulate with this

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Armaflex-1-2-in-x-6-ft-Rubber-Self-Seal-Pipe-Wrap-Insulation-HST05812/100550644

paint the armaflex for it to last longer.

So you're wanting to insulate the actual box itself or the pipe in it?

Go to a actual plumbing supply house and get whatever size Armaflex insulation you need, don't go to any of the box stores like Home Depot and get their pipe insulation, that stuff sucks. If you're wanting to put insulation in the actual box, you can buy sheets of armaflex as well….the plumbing supply house won't have that but our insulators use the big sheets of it all the time to insulate our big mechanical piping.

Therefore you'd probably have to go to an actual insulation store to get it. But every major city has one or two.

On edit: I didn't realize Home Depot carried armaflex. Definitely get that and not that other crap they carry that looks like a black pool noodle.

We had a similar setup at a hunting cabin that was 5 hours away. Would turn off the water supply line coming off the supply tank before we left every time. And the electric water heater had a switch on it that we turned off also.

Had a separate line going to water troughs that stayed on.