Dehumidifier drain question

[Raymond Fries]

We had a dehumidifier installed in our indoor greenhouse along with a mini split last summer. They ran a drain line outside and into a french drain. They also put heat tape around the drain pipe and covered that with foam insulation. This past Sunday there was water on the floor and a service call was made. The technician who came believed that the problem was because water had frozen in the line. They want to come back and install a tee so that we can dump hot water in the drain pipe and clean the line with bleach. Really? I read nothing in the install instructions about a tee and cleaning the drain line.

We did have a power outage a week ago for about 6 hours when it was extremely cold. I am sure that any water in the line outside could have frozen. But wouldn't the heat tape have melted the water in a week?
The line coming out of the house extends about 6" then an elbow sends the pipe down into the French drain. The heat tape is wrapped to within 6" of the ground.

Q1. Are these tees common practice?
Q2. Shouldn't the heat tape have melted any water in the pipe?
Q3. Anyone else have a dehumidifier draining to the outside in cold weather with a different install solution?

I am afraid the contractor wants to take a shortcut with the tee and have me monitor a freezing pipe. I do not want to wait until water is running out of the bottom of the dehumidifier and then run to get hot water and take care of a frozen pipe.

Sorry for the long post but necessary to explain.

Any thoughts or suggestions is greatly appreciated.

[Jerome Stanek]

my question is why a dehumidifier in the winter. What are you growing in the greenhouse. We had one when I was younger and could not use a dehumidifier as it was over an 1 1/2 acres. This was in the Cleveland Oh area

[Mark Bolton]

It doesn't meet code in a lot of areas, and a lot of people are reluctant if they are on a septic, but the subs I've use often dump them into a sanitary drain. In cold climates the general practice is not to drain them outside due to what you experienced.

Do you not have a floor drain in the greenhouse you could somehow tie into?

[Mike Lassiter]

as I read and understand your post the drain has been ran outside exterior wall about 6" then elbowed down into the ground to tie into a french drain. The drain pipe has a heat tape and insulation on in from the wall to within 6" of the ground. If I am understanding correctly I would think the drain pipe froze between the ground and where the heat tape and insulation stopped. The drain likely gets a trickle of water down it that slowly froze in the unprotected area and as more water trickled down to that area from the protected part it too froze and gradually plugged the pipe which then backed up inside. You probably did still have unfrozen water in the heat taped and insulated part.
My thoughts are (based on my asumption of situtation) would be to dig down around the drain in the ground and go maybe a foot or whatever your frost depth is expected in your area. Get a good quality foam pipe insulation that is split with adhesive on the edges to place around the drain, get a longer heat tape that can go on the pipe into the ground and to the wall the pipe comes out off. Cut the drain pipe eblow out and install the heat tape and pipe insulation on the pipe then slide a 2" (this will work on 3/4" drain) pipe over the insulation into the ground so it will protect your insulation and long enough to extend out of the ground to below the elbow so you can glue it and possible short sections of pipe in if needed to reconnect pipe. Then finish running heat tape back to the wall and cover with the foam insulation sticking out of the 2" protective pipe. This is MUCH simpler to do than explain!
If the ground froze for several inches deep with uninsulated pipe a slow trickle of water would slowly freeze and continue to buildup inside tge pipe until it was blocked and in any unprotected area exposed above the ground. Heat tape and insulation ran to 6" above the ground left that 6" to freeze

[Myk Rian]

I don't understand having a dehumidifier in a green house, but whatever.
Run the drain line into a sprinkling can and use it to water the plants.

[Raymond Fries]

This is a four season greenhouse. It has 22 Anderson windows and 4 skykights. Before we had the dehumidifier installed, she used an exhasut fan to exit the humid air from the room. Without this, the windows would ice over and then the ice would melt and soak the wooden frames of the windows. This becase very costly as we were just sucking the heat out of the room. Our electric bill went up about $200 a month for a 14' x 16' room. Tne dehumidifier and mini split replaced a PTAC unit and running the exhaust fan. I made a shutter to close the opening for the exhaust fan.

There is no floor drain and this is why it was ran outside.

What Mike said is what I believe happened. When the heat tape was installed, I wondered why it was not run to below the ground level. There is plenty of extra tape inside. I think the guy filled the sleeve around the drain pipe with gravel before he ran the tape and that is why it stopped above ground. He said we would not have a problem and I did not want to challenge him. It makes sense that the water would slowly freeze in that 12" or so section of the pipe between where the heat tape stops and below ground level where there is no heat. I think I will discuss this with the contractor when they call back today.

It is still a mystery why it plugged on Sunday as it was 36 degrees outside. Maybe the water would still freeze running over the ice in the pipe on its way to the bottom of the drain.

Somehow it will get resolved. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Jerome Stanek]

Still can't understand a dehumidifier for a greenhouse. Ours was in use every day year round.

[Jim Koepke]

Still can't understand a dehumidifier for a greenhouse.

It gets like a tropical jungle in our greenhouse at times. Some plants do not like that high of humidity.

Sometimes it drips inside our greenhouse. If there is wood construction and glass windows there can be other problems.

I think the original install was done incorrectly. Sometimes it is difficult to get a contractor to make it right when they are trying to defend their having done it wrong.

jtk

[Raymond Fries]

The contractor called today and we discussed the problem. Does anyone know if heat tape can get wet? I assume it is rubberized and will be just fine to go below the ground with the drain pipe. The contractor hesitated and said he thought there might be electrical issue with it and he was not sure. He said a tee might be a better solution but he would do whatever I wanted. I just do not want to setup a schedule to dump water into a drain line to keep it from freezing unless there is no other option.

Does anyone one see an issue with the heat tape getting wet because of being in the ground? I thought Mike's solution sounded good. Does anyone disagree with this? I do not want to do the wrong thing here.

Thanks

[Jim Koepke]

Does anyone one see an issue with the heat tape getting wet because of being in the ground?

If it is outside, what is going to keep it from getting wet when it rains?

Is it possible to install a plastic drain pipe around the current drain to keep water away?

jtk

[Myk Rian]

Does anyone know if heat tape can get wet?
Sure it can. I have it in my gutters, and running through the downspouts.

[Mike Lassiter]

The contractor called today and we discussed the problem. Does anyone know if heat tape can get wet? I assume it is rubberized and will be just fine to go below the ground with the drain pipe. The contractor hesitated and said he thought there might be electrical issue with it and he was not sure. He said a tee might be a better solution but he would do whatever I wanted. I just do not want to setup a schedule to dump water into a drain line to keep it from freezing unless there is no other option.

Does anyone one see an issue with the heat tape getting wet because of being in the ground? I thought Mike's solution sounded good. Does anyone disagree with this? I do not want to do the wrong thing here.

Thanks

Raymond the heat tape is sealed but probably not intended to be fully submerged all the time. The 2" pipe I remarked about is how I have the main water lines to 2 mobile homes coming out of the ground that supply water to them. Both have foam insulation surrounding the 3/4" main and then the 2" pipe over that to protect the insulation that comes up out of the ground several inches. One mobile home has heat tape which I just added a couple of weeks ago during the single digit weather we had. I was able to split the foam insulation back apart at the seam and slip the heat tape down into the 2" pipe going down in the ground as far as I could then close the foam back up over the pipe and heat tape. I didn't have heat tape on it (either one - the other one has brick around it, this one nothing due to major work being done) but hadn't had problems with the water freezing even down into the teens here for a few night but the water was left running a fast drip in the bathtub. The problem was (just exactly the same one your are having) the drain pipe froze and the water was backing up in the drain pipe. I had to turn the water off to keep from creating problems with the frozen drain - then the water line froze. Heat tape fixed that.

I don't really understand the reluctance about the contractor doing it, and especially why he's concerned about it getting wet. It would be no more able to get wet extending it down the 6" or so you said it ended above ground now and running it down to the ground then below grade (with the pipe protecting it from weed eater or accidentally hitting it with a hoe or shovel if in flower bed area working the dirt) than it already is. It is exposed outside now as much as I propose other than being a few inches more of it. The one I just installed said in instructions not to bury it into the ground - so even though I did extend it below grade of the ground it is not buried "in the ground" - in that it is not in direct contact with the dirt.

Reading another post you made I think you have indicated the heat tape is long enough that you already have installed to do what needs to be done - but wasn't done so the drain would have uninterrupted freeze protection. Don't know if the pipe was insulated down into the ground but it should be and the heat tape inside the insulation to a depth that the ground will not freeze the water if you have an extended cool spell where the ground freezes several inches (feet). The water draining inside the pipe don't care if the cold outside air freezes it, or the frozen ground does - it will still block the pipe.

on edit:
The heat tape must be installed on the BOTTOM of the horizontally ran pipe and it needs to be placed on the vertical pipe so it will continue down the vertical pipe straight down from the elbow so the water that trickles down the pipe will have the heat tape to keep it from freezing. Basically run it on the bottom of the pipe exiting the wall and bent down with the elbow so the heat tape is still against the pipe and not off to the side or the side opposite the elbow. Water will dripple down the elbow and continue down the pipe wall straight down. That's where the heat tape needs to be placed.

[Raymond Fries]

Thought I would post some pictures of what they did to help you see.
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Interesting that the sleeve is full of water and ice down to thew level of the gravel in the sleeve as you can see in the last picture. GUess that answeres the question of it getting wet. HUH.
Looks like they wrapped the tape instead of running it along the bottom of the PVC pipe as Mike suggested; what he said seems to be a better solution. Not sure if this matters. I think the sleeve runs down about two feet. Any idea how deep the frost line is? Surely if they run the heat tape to the bottom of the hole, it should not freeze.

Thanks all for your comments.

I like MIke's solution. If they lose the gravel and replace it with a foam wrapped drain line with heat tape along with a union, it would be easy to change the tape someday when it quits working. Do you think the line coming out of the house coul;d be pressed into the elbow and not use PVC solvent to weld it together? This would make for a smaller connection and not require a union.

[Mike Lassiter]

Raymond they have already done basically what I have been saying!

I see several things IMO that aren't right. First they DID use a larger pipe to protect the drain, but look at the difference between the insulation and the pipe - there's a lot of gap there for cold air to get in and freeze the drain up. This all makes sense now - in a way. As I said they did what I would have done expect I would have started in the ground and worked back to the wall, so the foam insulation and heat tape would have been down inside the bigger pipe and protected the drain inside if from freezing. I submit they did the outside work with the pipe inside the pipe then tied the drain from the outside wall into that with the pipe inside having no heat tape nor insulation. They couldn't run the heat tape down into the bigger pipe nor the insulation with the bigger pipe already set in the ground around the drain.

MAYBE possible to cut the plastic wire ties ( poor choice IMO, I would have used the foam that has adhesive on the slit to seal it together, or wrapped the foam with a good quality duct tape to hold the foam closely together. IMO even though it has insulation over it, it has gaps open that allow cold in - and rain too; and he was worried about the heat tape getting wet?) pull the foam off around the pipe and take another piece of foam insulation and slip over the drain pipe and try to slide it down inside the larger pipe while letting it wrap around the drain pipe. Run that down at least a foot below ground (more if you live in very cold climate and ground will freeze deeper) let the split opening go under the elbow so that the part of it all as we see in the picture has the solid foam facing you. Probably need to miter a section out so the foam can be bent over the elbow and back over the horizontal ran pipe with the split in the foam facing down toward the ground. Wrap that with duct tape. If there is still the gap between the larger protection pipe and foam insulation, it needs to be closed up. Maybe use fiberglass pipe wrap and wrap the top of the larger pipe and go back over the elbow and horizontal pipe too. Duct tape wrap this going down over the PVC so you have sort of sealed it all with duct tape to keep water out and protect the insulation. I don't think I would dig the PVC up to do what I originally described. This is almost there, but that large opening between the foam insulation and the PVC is letting cold air get in where the insulation and heat tape is not at.

[Mike Lassiter]

I cannot tell by looking at your pictures but does the smaller pipe that is wrapped actually go down inside the larger PVC pipe and connect to the drain below grade, or is the PVC the pipe connected and the smaller one ends just at the top the larger pipe? It might be they wrapped the drain coming out of the wall and put the heat tape on it, but the PVC pipe you say is full of water perhaps is what is tied into the in ground French drain and it froze. If it froze and the elbow extends down just a little into the larger PVC pipe the larger pipe maybe the problem - freezing and then freezing up to the drain that has the heat tape wrapped around it.

If that is the case, I guess I can see why the contractor is reluctant to do what I said - because the smaller pipe doesn't actually go all the way to the drain in the ground.
Does that make sense (I understand perfectly clear :))?

I guess after posting this it occurred to me the larger pipe being full of water either indicates it doesn't actually go down into another drain pipe with the smaller pipe (if that's now it was done) or is blocked. Consider if they have gravel around that pipe and it is in fact open to the ground at the bottom. The drain water would run into it from the smaller pipe and just soak into the ground, or possibly overflow it but it wouldn't prevent the smaller drain pipe from letting water out - unless the larger pipe freezes and it continues freezing until the water has risen enough that it has gotten to the smaller pipe and froze at the end of it. The pipe has heat tape ON IT, but that wouldn't prevent water from freezing at the opening and blocking it.

[Myk Rian]

Since you made no mention that you read my previous post, I'll repeat.
I have heat tape running in my gutters, and inside the downspouts. They never freeze up. Even with extended -20º days last year.
One of the tapes is run through the underground (3" under) drain pipe, and also never freezes. It actually keeps the snow melted on the ground.

Just run the heat tape down the drain line and forget about it. Your contractor is clueless.

[Raymond Fries]

Myk, I did read your prior post and thank you very much for your comments. It has become very obvious that the contractor cut a corner and just trying to minimize his warranty work. LOL on clueless. I tend to agree. But then he is a Vice President for the company.

Mike, The smaller pipe is the same pipe which you can see exiting the house in the first picture. I do not know if the smaller pipe extends to the bottom of the two foot shaft or stops somewhere in between. The drain is just a hole they drilled. The smaller drain pipe just drips into the hole and soaks into the ground. The larger sleeve is full water at least partly because they filled the space between the drain pipe and the larger sleeve with gravel to at least ground level and maybe a little higher. I would like to see the gravel gone and use foam like you suggested. That would make it easier too replace someday. I do not know if they started outside or inside.

Contractor will call back Monday to talk to me. He wanted to contact the mfg of the heat take to make sure it was ok to run into the pipe.

hope this answered all the questions. I cannot seem to be able to scroll back the the prior page of posts.

thanks again everyone for your help.

[Myk Rian]

But then he is a Vice President for the company.
Well, there ya go. Explains everything.

[Kent A Bathurst]

... dump them into a sanitary drain.

Yeah - I was wondering about that. July-August in Atlanta you could almost shower with the ouput from the dehumidifier portion of our central air.

It drains into a small box - smaller than a shoebox - with a sensor that kicks on a 12v pump, and takes it up to the ceiling, 30'+ downstream through maybe 1/4" ID clear plastic tubing, and drops into the pipe that is the standpipe/equalizer above the clothes washer drain.

Gotta be 15 years old; never had a leak, never had maintenance.

Sure seems like that would be easy to do for the greenhouse, for a fire-and-forget solution, regardless of outside temp and frost levels.

Maybe separate storm - sanitary systems affects what and how you can do it?

I once thought about rerouting that plastic pipe to outside runoff collection tubs for the gardens, but that would be a fool's errand. I have 550 gal storage capacity fed by about 1/3 of the roof, and the math works out to 1" rain to fill from dry. That's doodly-squat for a shower in an Atlanta summer. Crazy, but Atlanta has no city-wide storm sewer, so the overflow from those tanks goes into the same sanitary system that the dehumidifier dumps to.

[Myk Rian]

We had a pump for our AC water. Dumped into the slop sink 20' away. I finally got wise and ran PVC to a floor drain near the furnace. Much quieter.

[Raymond Fries]

The original plan was to pump the water into a line running into the attic and tap into a pipe up there. They could not get to the attic from the greenhouse because of the way the roof was attached. There is no floor drain and that is why it was ran outside. Hopefully, the new fix will bring an end to this mess. I want them to fix it so the drain pipe can be taken apart to replace the tape someday. Hopefully, that two foot deep hole is below the frost line or nothing will be fixed.

Thanks again to all for your helpful comments.

[Kent A Bathurst]

OK - now I understand how it ended up the way it is. Good luck wth the fix.

FYI - I lived 90 minues north of you, and IIRC the frost line was 45" or so....... might want to check.
good luck.

[Charlie Velasquez]

Way too complicated for my taste. ...
Run the drain line into a sprinkling can and use it to water the plants.This....
During the summers I help our school district mitigate mold concerns in our buildings as cheaply as possible. 5 yrs ago we used to run our A/C three hours a day. very expensive. Now we use dehumidifiers.

Anyway, since you are removing water from your greenhouse, you must be adding water someplace. I am not sure of your dehumidifier's properties, but if it is moveable,
1. Get a BIG container, we use 65 and 95 gallon recycling containers on wheels.
2. 3/4" plywood to use as a lid. Get a nice tablecloth to put over it to add to the decor of your greehouse.
3. Set the dh on it and drain it to the container.
4. Use the water to irrigate the plants.

With a small pump, you could run a dripline and have yourself a real life terrarium.
Even if you don't use the water to irrigate you would probably only have to empty it once a month or so.

I am originally from Marion. We had to go 48" minimum.

[Raymond Fries]

Water on the floor again today and outside there are ice cycles coming out between the drain pipe and the foam insulation. Shut it off till tomorrow. Called the support line and said to have the VP come to the house tomorrow and provide a planned solution.

Anyone know if it is electrical code for heat tape to be plugged into a GFCI? I do not have one.
I am tired of trying to research and see if what I have is what they installed.

[Myk Rian]

I've seen 2 types of heat tape. One looks like a woven cover, the other is plastic coated. I use the plastic for obvious reasons. You can get various lengths at the box stores.
I have 2 of them plugged into a GFCI and the other just plugged in.

[Mike Lassiter]

Water on the floor again today and outside there are ice cycles coming out between the drain pipe and the foam insulation. Shut it off till tomorrow. Called the support line and said to have the VP come to the house tomorrow and provide a planned solution.

Anyone know if it is electrical code for heat tape to be plugged into a GFCI? I do not have one.
I am tired of trying to research and see if what I have is what they installed.

Outside receptacles are suppose to be on a GFI circuit. I think it would be a good idea to have the heat tape on one, but you can install a GFI receptacle where it is plugged in and protect it. I think you indicated the heat tape was plugged in inside the wall so you could replace that receptacle since the heat tape is technically outside exposed to the weather.

I suspect your drain is not as I thought. I thought the pipe in the ground went to another drain pipe, but it seems it is merely a pipe in the ground that is filled with gravel and gravel packed around it so the water would soak into the ground. Not what I was describing because I thought the smaller pipe that the water is draining outside the wall in was run down into the ground into some other drain.

The heat tape IS getting wet as it is pictured, and for the contractor to be calling the manufacture to ask if that's OK seems dumb since that's already the case now. It seems to me the water is freezing in the bigger pipe that is in the ground while the smaller one the insulation and heat tape is on likely stops at the top of that bigger pipe. Water is not freezing in the smaller pipe with the heat tape but as the water continues to trickle out of it, it fills the larger pipe when the ground and pipe gets cold enough to freeze the water - it continues to freeze and get higher and higher until the pipe is filled with ice that the blocks the water from running out of the elbow on the smaller pipe and then the pipe fills and backs up into the inside.

I think as I already said the foam being gapped open at the top is a problem, but wrapping the foam insulation with duct tape tightly would close the gaps in the insulation and keep water from getting down in the gapped insulation. It really seems to me the only thing needing done is to dig the pipe in the ground up, and remove the gravel inside it so the drain water can go down below the ground freezing to soak in inside the pipe - then cover the top of the pipe so the cold air and rain cannot get inside it. This is not as complicated as it has seemed to become by far.

[Lee Schierer]

I would switch to Frostex heat tape (http://www.deanbennett.com/frostex-heat-tape.htm). It is self limiting and can be submerged.

[Raymond Fries]

Well the installation manager was here today for a couple of hours. Turns out the heat tape was not even working. If he squeezed a certain spot on the plastic sleeve over the circuit board, the LED light would turn on and the cable would get warm. If he would let go, it would turn off. The ground is frozen and there isn't any digging it up until a thaw comes.:(

He wants to try to find a way to run the drain line internally. If not possible, they will redo the exterior drain when weather permits. This leaves me with monitoring and dumping a drip pan on the floor until we have a permanent solution. What a mess... Just dumped a pan and it fills in 2.3 hours.

I guess there is GFIC in the room. There is one on the first outlet in the room. The outlet three down line on the circuit is where the heat tape was plugged in. The guy said we were OK?

Thanks again for everyone's input.

On a side note, if I found the correct heat tape online as it appears that they installed, the install instructions say not to use it on drain pipes and not to run it through an exterior wall. The numbers on the tag match the Wrap On brand. This is a little troublesome. So if the solution is on the exterior, they better use the proper heat tape. He suggested running the heat tape inside of the drain line which would extend below the frost line.