Chile Forum

no country for young men wrote:
If water freeezes up in buried PEX, guessing you get damage to the concrete even if the PEX is ok.

So you drain down your whole house when you leave in the winter? Alcohol in the traps and all?

Glycol in the central heating, just gravity drain for the domestic water, with no alcohol or other antifreeze in the water lines. There is no pex buried or in set concrete,only grommetted penetrations. Buried water line is plastic but I don't remember the material. It is buried to .5 metre. Freezes here come in short bursts of Antarctic air lasting a couple of days,then back to around zero Celsius or greater, so very little deep freezing of the ground. But I am just above an arm of the Pacific so we have some moderating maritime effect.

It's the middle of summer here right now but we just had snow last night down to about 1000 metres elevation.

Picture from archive, fall of 2009.

Pex freezes and expands, but does not burst like rigid lines. If a line is frozen you can just warm it up gently to bring it back to life(just don't melt the pex with a direct flame )