Had a pump freeze up - first time ever

[Shdwdrgn]

Not exactly sure why it happened, but I have a couple theories. My setup is two pumps with individual pipes leading to two 55gal barrel filters. These sit on either side of the waterfall, and the water spilling out from both sides makes a nice even flow over the waterfall. I run my pumps all year long, and after rebuilding the waterfall area last Summer I have undergravel plumbing in the waterfall to push water up from the center. This caused a great deal of concern during leaf cleaning in the Fall, as I noticed that turning off one of the pumps still allowed water to flow out of both barrels. For nearly a month I thought I'd had an underground rupture between the pipes, until I finally remembered that both lines are now connected under the waterfall gravel bed.

We had a deep freeze around Christmas... nightly temperatures around -10F and lower, daily temperatures barely cracking into the positive digits. Everything ran perfectly fine, as normal. Well this week we had one night that got down to around -20F, and one of the filter barrels was frozen up the next day. The pipe was frozen solid above ground, and with nothing that could be done I shut off the pump. The other pump is still running fine. Yesterday we finally got above freezing, and we're going to be hitting around 50 all week, with 60 predicted for tomorrow, so yesterday I broke out the big heater, chipped away the top ice from the frozen barrel, and let the heater run overnight. Today the barrel was thawed, and some time after lunch the pipes thawed enough on this end to allow water to start flowing through from the other barrel, so now the heated water is flowing back into the pond again.

Unfortunately the other end doesn't look good at all. The flexible pipe leading to the pump is frozen solid, and it feels like it is frozen clear down to the pump. Note that both pumps sit side-by-side, so there has been a constant flow on unfrozen water around this pump and hose. And until the hose thaws out, there's no reason to even turn the pump back on again, but I'm worried...

Now I have some ideas about what may have happened. On that really cold night, a huge wall of ice formed in front of the waterfall, which partially drained the small pond where the pumps are at. Normally not a problem, but with the extreme temperatures, the pump may have been exposed to air and frozen up solid. The other possibility is that the lower water level slowed down the flow of water just enough that the pipes are the barrel froze up, stopping all flow -- but that theory doesn't really explain why the pump hose froze up. Regardless, my biggest concern now is whether the pump itself was damaged by the freeze, and with the hose frozen up I can't even bring up the pump to check it out. Most of the pipe is buried underground though, so I'm not too concerned about that.

Guess we'll see what this week brings. Despite the temps, my pond is still covered in ice and snow, but this week (and having two heaters running full-blast in the water) should really warm things up. With any luck I'll have an answer soon...

 

[Tula]

Wow, -20 is pretty darn cold .....brrrrrrrr. Sounds like it's your first winter with the new water fall plumbing system and very cold temps. Will be interested to follow your updates.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well the thing is most of the new pipe is under the gravel, and thus always underwater, so typically it should never freeze up. I mean, the pipes aren't even glued together, they're all just press-fit. All of my above-ground plumbing is that way (although the underground stuff was glued), and it's never been a problem before. Plus it provides room for expansion, and some of the pipes over the barrel *were* pushed apart a bit, so it is probably doing its job of preventing damage to the plumbing.

We've had -20 degree weather here before, it's not all that uncommon. What *was* unusual is the way the ice built up a mountain in front of the waterfall. Usually when it's that cold, the ice forms as a thin shell around the waterfall, encasing the splashing water. This time it just piled up, freezing enough water in place to drain the lower pond. Another difference is that usually when something like this happens there is already a layer of ice over the top of the lower pond, so despite the drop in water level there is an air pocket between the pumps and the frigid air temp, but this time the exposed pump was in direct contact with that cold air.

Oh well, guess I'll wait and see if the pump still functions after it thaws out. If not, I've actually been thinking of getting a larger pump to replace one of them and bump the overall water flow up another 1500gph just to improve the flow over the waterfall and down the stream, so it won't be a huge loss if the pump is dead.

 

[cas]

If not, I've actually been thinking of getting a larger pump to replace one of them

I love that you are looking at the positive side!

 

[mrsclem]

Hopefully once the pump thaws out it will still run. I shut down my bog the other night because of falling temps. The pump is in a 500gal holding section of the pond and it was starting to freeze. Unplugged pump and dropped it into deep section of the pond. I may have to lower my main pumps today to keep them from freezing.

 

[sissy]

WOW# seems the new year is starting off bad for a lot of people .What next scares me

 

[RobAmy]

No fun, good luck with the outcome

 

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello
If there is a good side to this, (if that can be said)
Is that it is winter and not the,middle of summer where every pump and filter is vital to pond and fish health.

Ruben

 

[mrsclem]

So true and at least you will have time to do research on a new pump if needed.

 

[sissy]

Pumps right now are on sale at a lot of the places also .

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well, good news already!!! We had a massive melt-off today, 8 inches of snow almost completely gone. Remember how I mentioned that because of the new plumbing, water from one filter could get pushed into the other now? Well it went further than that, it actually pushed all the way back up the other line and cleared out all the ice during that day, so when I got home tonight I was able to bring up the pump. Turned on the power, and nothing, so I cracked the case open. Everything looked good, tried to give it a spin with a screwdriver but it felt a bit stiff. When I set the pump back on the ground I bumped it against a rock, and that was all it took... the pump started spinning and there were no unusual sounds. I put the case back together and dropped it back in the pond, and a few seconds later the output at the waterfall kicked up again. We're off and running!

The water flowing all the way through the pipes got me to thinking though... because of the new crossover in the pipes, I think it is best if I keep the pumps equally matched in output. I probably should have put something in the pipes to reduce the amount of flow between them, but that's all buried now, not much I can do about it. It does surprise me at just how much water was back-flowing through the other line though.

 

[DeepWater]

My waterfall did a similar thing this weekend. It was so cold and the ice so thick that one of the 2 wye connected pump inputs 18" down starter sucking in air, in a short cycle style. The reduced water flow down the waterfall seemed to let the shell get more narrow on the inside. A 2nd fault was that for several days the daytime sun on the southern exposure above the falls caused it to melt and open a hole, and the pumped water pressure would surge through that hole up/down/up down and the water flowed over the top of the falls, freezing larger and thicker, and lowering the pond water level even more.

I drilled a hole in the pond, the ice was indeed 18" thick! I could hear the pump gasping throug that hole. Then I carried 5 gallon pails of water to dump down the hole. This increased the geyser problem above the waterfall as the full GPH flow was still too much to fit under the ice shell. I piled snow and ice shards around the geyser to raise the spillover height and contain it, and continued to slowly add more buckets of water. After a few hours the geyser froze over and I could hear all water flowing under the shell again... No more air induced short cycling either.

I probably added about 150 gallons of water. Oddly, the water level in my drilled hole never rose up more than about 2" from the bottom. I thought it would suddenly take one last bucket and rise to the top. It's supposed to be 38 tomorrow with some rain, so I think things will stabilize.

 

[cas]

I drilled a hole in the pond, the ice was indeed 18" thick!

Wow. I am glad you got your problem fixed.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Eesh I've never had more than about 7" of ice over my pond, and that seemed like too much.