This is inspired by the pitiful story from the poor poster with 50 in of water in his cellar. We leave our cabin in Maine unoccupied and unattended for the winter. I drain the system, put antifreeze in drains, etc. From time to time I’ve had some frozen pipes. (I should say that the entire plumbing system is DIY’ed by me.) Once a plumber came, sneered at my efforts and pointed out the lack of pitch and plugs.
Well, I knew about pitch when roughing in the DWV part, but it never occured to me to think about pitch with the supply lines, which in retrospect is pretty stupid. So, how much pitch should there be in horizontal runs? What about plugs? As it is I just open all the faucets and hope atmospheric pressure and gravity will do the trick.
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All of the yard sprinkler systems around here are blown out with compressed air at the end of the season. What I did was make an air fitting with a female hose bibb fitting on one end and air chuck on the other . Fasten this to an available hose bibb and proceed from there. Open your faucets, toilet,any valve, and blow air through the pipes. The amount of air volume is considerable,but you can mitigate this by closing valves as you get them clear. For the traps follow the rules for an RV.
ATRIDENT has the best solution for your situation as it stands, everthing else is hindsight. If you decide to modify the existing system pitch is minimal, just make sure that they slant toward a low point or plug where you can get the water out. A valve or hose bib at that point makes it more convenient. Luck.
Thanks, but what is ATRIDENT?
Thats the screen name of the post that I agree with.