Saturday, September 29, 2007

Keep your cool(er) and prevent frozen pipes

Our water line was installed two weeks ago and the very end of the line - where the hydrant and the water cut-offs are - has sat open to the sky. In order to finish that section, I'd need to build an insulated box, cover the pipes, build a lid, cover the lid and the box with dirt. Not that it's a lot of work. After all, I built a milk stand for our goats in about two hours with nothing but scrap slab, a chainsaw, a hammer and some nails. But it's a bit of wood and I didn't want to use scrap slab for this because it's underground and would rot.

So there I stood, looking into an open hole thinking "Insulate box, insulate box... hmmmm." And inspiration struck!

When Robin and Summer left two days ago, they left behind an old cooler whose lid had warped. It was a matter of a few minutes work with the chainsaw to slice the bottom off of it and fit it over the water cut-off handles. I then seated the lid as best I could and covered the whole thing with dirt. The dirt will keep the lid in place. The cooler will keep the pipes from freezing.

And I didn't have to waste wood.

This is a perfect example, I think, of reusing a piece of potentially toxic trash. What ideas do you have?

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